The Library of Impossible Seasons

The brass key feels warm, too warm, slick against the palm. Shelves stretch high, curving into the dim light, and the books stacked here radiate heat, the warmth of stale sunlight trapped between the pages. A window across the reading table displays autumn, the maples burning red, though the air smells of salt and snow. I press my back to a shelf of blue spines, breathing in the dry paper dust. An ache settles behind my ribs, a clean, deep pressure I know does not belong to me. A section of the carpet listing the Dewey Decimal numbers shifts, the numbers replaced by dates: 1929, 1974, 2003. The heat from the books climbs the air.