The hall stretches endlessly, a gargantuan throat yawning before the hesitant traveler. Walls, well-versed in solitude, stand tall and firm, guarding untold memories and the sighs of fading yesterdays. Above, shadows go vague in the breath of a distant crystal chandeliers’ agonized whisper, flicker on the edge of the vast oratory.
In chambers where curtains had once thrilled with the touch of lingering secrets, slumbers the cavernous void, awash in echo and mist. The floor, if it could suffice to remember, would murmur of shoes shuffling, the insistent ticking of a lost watch, or the readied click of remembered keys, destined for unopened doors.
Listen: The echoes return as beleaguered whispers pass through an aeon of silence. You wander through the hours — each step a knotted tone, each breath a dim vignette — fragment after fragment, pouring down like stars shaken from their heavenly perches until the corridor becomes cosmic, expansive.
The Pilgrim ReflectsAs dusk spills liquid velvet upon this threshold, the void swells evermore below one’s thoughts. Around, a resonance thrives; impermeable, yet unuttered, stretching further horizontally unpronounced. Endless. The shards of sight compass back to view — exchanges in cracked mirrors, which ever were Belles-Lettres’ illusory companions.
The slightest conviction claims new light, adventuring stitch to night, fostering angles where lilies once sprouted timid among the déjà vu bricked enclosures. Attend the tenuous hum; embark; be received, only to disaccustom alongside the void once more and contemplate the viewer amongst ethereal emissions.