Departure Without Him

Dust lifts as my step hesitates between benches, and the room exhales at the same time, a hollow sigh threaded with the scrape of old wood and the cold violet wash leaking through tall windows mid-fade. The hall opens outward while pulling inward: departures frozen on a dark board above shuttered windows, paint blistering like old apologies on the ceiling, lamps hanging patient and mute. Someone stitched waiting into this place and left before it could answer. I follow the clues he might have trusted—footprints pressed into grit, a red scarf slung over the bench like a pulse left behind, another falling to the floor as if reconsidering flight. On the wall, chalked careful and large, the question stays asking: Where Vojta? It tastes of lime and dust, sounds like trains imagined but never arriving. I read it as a vow rather than loss, an offering pinned here until someone returns to claim it. We have not found him yet, but the room still holds its breath, ready.