The Archival Breath

The spines lean like tired travelers, shoulder to shoulder in the velvet dark. Gold-leaf letters catch a stray beam of moonlight, a cold fire on leather.

The air is thick with the scent of glue, of pressed flowers and forgotten names. Oxygen turns to ink in the lungs of the stone-cold building.

Here, the rustle of a turning page is a ghost's cough, a soft percussion against the monolithic hush. Time is a sediment, settling on the oak.

We are the footnotes of a grander text, scribbled in the margins by a shaky hand, waiting for the morning to burn away the deep blue ink of the night.