The Ink's Long Breath

The tall shelves exhale, releasing the scent of glue and cedar into the cool, unpeopled air. Dust motes drift like static in the path of a stray moonbeam.

Between the leather spines, characters step from their margins, stretching cramped limbs and whispering the secrets the daylight wouldn't dare hold.

A clock counts the silence, its rhythm a slow, mechanical pulse against the weight of ten thousand stories settling deeper into their paper beds, waiting for the turn of a hand.