Lattice of Dusk

They built the grid as if the ground could confess its secrets—tier upon tier, lines crossing like old scars burned into the valley’s skin. At sunset, the towers smolder, casting vertical shadows that swallow whole districts. That pale query in the sky—WHERE VOJTA?—feels almost tender from this distance, though we once traced those letters trembling in the dark with our bare hands. I still hear his voice at the base of the scaffolds, promising the pathways would lead to an answer. But the maze sprawled further, deeper, every corridor a fork disguised in steel and stone, and still he slipped beyond the last illuminated rung. Shapes spiral there now, birds or something older, skimming the twilight divide between heat and cold. Look closely: each unlit notch on those monoliths could cradle him, or what remains of him, yet the towers give no sign. Time pools among the crossbeams, ancient and near, and Vojta—Vojta is still not here.