The Unentered Building Lobby

The carpet here has the scent of wet cedar and ozone. I hold the tooth, it is clean, milk enamel, and it weighs exactly fifty grams. The lobby stretches, glass panels reflecting the wrong shade of twilight blue. I trace the curve of the marble pillar with my thumb; the stone feels warm, a heat that belongs to a person who just stood here.

The song starts, a voice coming from a piano that sits behind the reception desk, the keys yellowed like old bone. I sing the chorus back, the melody rising from my throat, hitting the same note as the piano. The music does not move the air, it just is. A man in a brown suit stands by the directory board, listing dates from 1967 to 1999, the numbers running down a column where names should be. I keep singing, waiting for the rhythm to shift, waiting for the smell of the ocean I cannot name to appear.