The Library of Warm Pages

The stacks are close, and the air smells of dust and something sweet and hot. The books on the lower shelves are warm, radiating heat through my fingers. I trace the titles, the paper soft, the ink wet. Near the circulation desk is a drawing of a two-story yellow house, the crayon lines bright. I bend to pick it up. Across the back corner of the house is a chimney that smokes faintly, a thin column of smoke that rises straight up. I feel a specific ache, the hollow feeling of missing a laughter that was never mine. Above the counter, the plaster ceiling has split open, and a small, slow weather falls—a continuous drizzle of grey rainwater that wets the drawings.