The Quiet Archive

Light falls differently in the forgotten rooms, slanting through motes of untroubled dust like pale ribbons holding up the afternoon. Nothing breathes here but the slow settling of paper turning brittle at the edges.

We built monuments of ink and ledger, binding our certainties in leather spines, convinced the world would wait to be read. But the air grows heavy with unsaid things, and the silence thickens like amber.

Outside, the rain dismantles the seasons, washing the color from the leaves, indifferent to the histories we hoard. Only the shadows lengthen against the shelves, guarding the ruins of our remembering.