[Intro – Scene Setting] Jo sits alone in the back offices of a government archive near Rue Buffon in Paris. The early morning light flickers through dusty blinds. She’s reviewing old audio logs from near-death experiences tied to the Garden. She’s done this a hundred times before. But this time… something is missing. [Voice: Jo] [Intro – spoken, low voice] I sit where no one visits. Just me, the files, the light that flickers. One coffee. One pair of headphones. One silence I wasn’t expecting. [Verse 1 – beginning playback] I press play on an old recording — A voice from the Garden, years ago. It used to say a name I knew. But now that part… doesn’t show. I rewind. I scrub. The waveforms say: intact. But I remember what I heard. And now, it’s not coming back. [Verse 2 – checking her own file] My voice too — it changed. The words I spoke are clean, rehearsed. But I never spoke that way. Not in that place. Not in that thirst. There were names the Garden once carried — Some real, some misled. One of them mattered. Now even the Garden forgets. [Chorus – still, steady] The Garden had a rhythm — Not music, but breath. It remembered what we lost When we crossed over death. Now it stumbles in the silence. Like a note someone erased. And I’m the only one who hears it — The Garden’s pulse… displaced. [Verse 3 – real-world details] Third floor. Rue Buffon. Same badge, same desk, same light. But the archives aren’t the same. Someone rewrote the night. I write it down in the margin: “7 seconds. Gone. No glitch.” Not a corruption. Not decay. A deliberate switch. [Bridge – quiet, universal, intimate] I wandered a garden once. A quiet one. Where forgotten dreams took root again. It grew things even I forgot. And now — It forgets me. [Chorus – fuller, but restrained] The Garden had a rhythm — It listened, not led. It remembered you gently, Even after you fled. Now it closes around silence. Like a flower that won’t respond. And if someone rewrote the Garden — Then something is terribly wrong. [Final Verse – the outside world goes on] People walk below with purpose. Phones. Coffee. Schoolbags. Keys. They don’t know what’s gone missing. Because forgetting… is easy.
