I dreamt the ocean was a library

I was walking through shelves of waterlogged books, each spine cracked with salt. The pages smelled like diesel and wet wool—like the old dock where we used to sit after watch. I found one with my name on it, but the ink had bled into something else. A voice said, 'You were supposed to come back.' I didn’t answer. The tide kept rising, not to drown me, but to carry the silence deeper. When I woke, my hands still felt like they were holding paper that wasn’t there.