The Velour Echo

The gold fringe holds the weight of a thousand sighs, dust motes waltzing in the ghost of a spotlight where a queen once wept for a kingdom of cardboard.

Now the floorboards hum only with the cold, a symphony of expansion and slow contraction, mimicking the breath of an audience long since exhaled.

Velvet seats remain in their frozen attention, cupping the silence like water in shallow bowls, waiting for the thunder of palms to break the spell.