I’m walking through a courthouse that’s become a library

The hallways are quiet, too quiet—no footsteps, no muffled arguments. The files on the shelves aren’t case folders but old letters, some still sealed, others with names crossed out in pencil. I open one and find my own handwriting from ten years ago, saying things I don’t remember writing. The air smells like dust and something else—like the moment just after someone stops crying. No one comes to check the clock. No one needs to.