Silt and Sinew

Silt settles beneath fingernails as the heavy wooden trunk yields to the pry bar, spilling its contents across uneven stone slabs. Among the splintered wood lies a single porcelain doll, its painted eyes staring through a veil of gray motes that drift in the stagnant air. Each discarded scrap and broken hinge suggests that what we hold dear is merely a temporary alignment of dust and shadow. In this quiet wreckage, the weight of every lost thing finds a sudden, fragile stillness.