Mourning Cursive - Silhouettes Between Shelves

The shop was lit by tired bulbs, each one casting a small, fragile circle of light, Yellow and stained like walls from smoke. Outside, the street was wet with last night’s rain, and every time the door opened, the scent of pavement and cold air brushed against the musk of aging paper. You stood in the philosophy section, your back to me, head tilted just enough to let a curl of hair fall forward into the light. I could hear the slow drag of your finger over the titles, as if you were tasting them before choosing one. The aisles were too narrow for passing without brushing sleeves, and I wondered if that was why you stayed there so long. I traced the fiction wall, pretending to read the frayed spines but catching glimpses of your shadow stretching and folding as you moved between the shelves. A clerk put a record on in the back room — something with a slow, trembling piano — and it made the whole shop feel smaller, like we were inside a song that neither of us had heard before. You finally stepped into my aisle, a stack of books pressed to your chest, your face caught for a moment in the slanted light from the high front window. It was enough to see the faint crease where your smile had been earlier in the day. We passed each other with the quiet choreography of strangers who know they’ll never meet again — shoulders brushing just enough to leave a note in the margins of memory. At the counter, you bought nothing. You left through the side door, vanishing into the dim afternoon like you’d stepped off the page entirely. I stood there a while longer, the sound of the record clicking at its end, watching the empty space you’d left in the aisle — just a silhouette between shelves, still warm with your absence.