I.
Allemande

​

The young man swiftly but quietly descended the long, winding stairs, his steps graceful yet soundless. He was muttering something to himself, though not a single sound escaped his lips.

​

Silence was rule number one in the library, even when it was fully empty — even when there was no one around to disturb. Having spent so much time here, the silence, the stillness, the order of it all had become second nature.

This place wasn't somewhere / Not somewhere he simply visited for Kurt. Palace of his mind, a part of his imaginary :As he know: He knew every rule; he also knew every curve, every shadow, every drifting speck of dust, as if they were fragments of his own memory.

​

As he spiraled through the stairs—

and his hands were slipping fast from the railings—

a riddle was also repeating between his lips,
passing with the rhythm of each tread he touched:

​

"And the order descended into chaos, light fades into darkness."

​

With a newly selected novel in his hand, he barely noticed the weight
of the other books in his backpack, so lighthearted was he.

His only concern was reaching his favorite room on the third floor of the seven-tiered library and diving into the new thing he had discovered.

Kurt was considered a bit odd by his classmates at school,
by neighbors on the street, even by his own family.

Sure, he liked leaping over fences like any wild-hearted
boy and running through the grass without a care.

​

But at some point each day—whether at its beginning,
its end, or in the quiet hours after everyone else had fallen asleep—

he would inevitably find himself tucked away in a quiet corner,
having fallen, once again, into the depths of a book.

​

Would it matter anyway—what people thought?

With all the foaming waves crashing in his head,
he rarely heard what anyone was saying.

​

His mind was usually elsewhere, wandering through questions far from the noise of everyday wishes—drawn instead to rarer secrets:

How do hyacinths know when spring has arrived? Do butterflies understand how brief their lives will be? Just as we dream while watching the stars, could they be watching us too? And even emperors gilded in gold, or gladiators bathed in the blood of their enemies— what do they fear?

​

Sixth floor—footsteps. "And the order descended into chaos."

Fifth—more footsteps. "Light fades into darkness."

Fourth— "Feather to fire, Fire to blood."

 

As he passed the fourth floor, the riddle was interrupted—
cut short by the sudden presence of a strange silhouette in the palace:

A girl, he had never seen before.

He froze for a moment, stunned, and looked at her.
It was the first time he had seen another visitor at this early hour.

​

She didn't belong to this place—that much was certain.

With her short, jet-black hair, and eyes like slivers of night,
she was so strikingly beautiful that Kurt couldn't help but notice.

​

Standing across the hall, the girl looked back at Kurt, standing on the spiraling staircase.

When their eyes met, he blushed—soft and sudden—and quickly continued his descent.

He reached the second floor and walked between the tall bookshelves, his thoughts echoing louder than his steps.

​

"Why hadn't I greeted her? — What was she doing here—at this hour, in this place?"

At the end of the hall, he opened the double doors with stained glass panels and stepped into his favorite room. He could forget her now, he told himself,
and return to the world of his own.

The book he had chosen today was a collection of stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

Kurt put on his headphones and opened the first page.

The clock had just struck ten.

He read. ———- And he dreamed.

By the time he had reached the middle of the book,
without once rising from his seat, noon had passed.

Only then did he notice his weariness.
He stretched out across the old couch,
yawning as his gaze wandered to the ceiling above.

​

A library shaped beyond time—timeless in every sense.
The pillars, carved from glossy walnut, glowed when the late afternoon sun kissed them.

He mused, "What a spectacular privilege it is for human beings to build things like this."

 

Neither he nor the girl was the only visitor that day.
Another presence shared the light with them—a butterfly, born yesterday.

She, too, had arrived early that morning, and had spent the hours dancing through the beams of color refracted by the stained glass windows of the Bibliothèque Nationale.

When the midday heat turned the wood fragrant and heavy,
she hid among the shelves to rest.
 

But now, with the golden hour approaching,
she had begun fluttering her wings once more, bathing in the evening light.

Kurt watched her delicate wings shimmer in the air, and asked himself one of those strange, quiet questions that always found him in stillness:

"Does she know?"
 

***

The presence of that butterfly turned out to be a rare gift to us, the curious readers.

Because the demons who were meant to tell us this story had dozed off during Kurt's long afternoon of reading. So it was the butterfly who told
us what happened the rest of the day.

***
 

The entrance hall, with its twin staircases descending from either side, resembled a pool—a reflecting space, like the foyer of a dreamlike mansion with a high ceiling.

The butterfly landed gently on the lamp above the hall, taking a break from her daydreaming—to think, for just a moment, about her approaching death.

She had spent one of her three days of life in this library, and in her mind, what a beautiful decision that had been made.

Soon, she too would leave.​

​

But not yet, luckily.

At that very moment, Kurt crossed the corridor and stepped onto the wooden staircase that curled downward into the grand hall from the right.

And on the staircase opposite—on the left—
stood the same girl he had seen in the morning.

They saw each other at once.

When —

The world seemed to hold its breath.
Dust floated in the shafts of evening light.
The floor creaked softly under the old wood. They stood frozen, as if their bodies had remembered something their minds had not yet understood.

A perfectly synchronized gaze, in one beat of a heart.

Then, almost shyly, the young man raised his hand and waved.

​

The butterfly said:

"The young man waved at the girl, and they descended the stairs and began to talk. Then, together, they left the library and stepped out onto a street in Paris.
The last I saw of them, they were turning the corner—still talking, still showing each other their books—and then I continued on my way. That's all I know—
what I saw, from the glow of a late summer afternoon."

​

That was the day that Diane and Kurt met.

​

​

​

II.
Courante

​

It was also the beginning of many days they'd spend side by side.

Diane had moved from Seoul just a few months before. She could speak French well enough to laugh at Kurt's jokes, but the written language still tangled her thoughts. The Latin alphabet felt nothing like Hangul—it was jagged, full of unfamiliar curves and rules that didn't speak to her yet.

​

But something about Kurt made it easier. He didn't correct her like teachers did. He simply pointed to things she already loved—old atlases, animal myths, constellation names—and let her trace the words with her finger, like spells waiting to be remembered.

​

They made a strange pair: the boy who questioned the metaphysics of gravity, and the girl who couldn't yet read a café menu without help.
But their difference became its own kind of language.

​

A slow translation; they built a shared vocabulary of gestures and metaphors, notebooks and notes tucked into books, unfinished sentences only the other could complete.

 

She taught him to write his name in Korean.

He taught her how to read Borges aloud,
even when the sentences folded into themselves.

They took notes in different colors—Diane in blue,
Kurt in black for logic and red for dreams.

​

They folded paper cranes from homework sheets, leaving them for the library's ghosts.

She liked to believe the ghosts replied by rearranging
the books when no one was watching.

​

Some days they barely spoke at all. But the silence between them was never empty.

Each glance, a question; a smile, a cipher.

Each time their hands brushed over the same word, it felt like uncovering.

Diane would write things like:

Why do vowels slip through meaning? If a book is infinite,
how do we not drown? Is Borges really blind, or is he just looking inward?

When Kurt says; "A sentence is a portal.
You have to step into it with belief, or it turns against you." Diane, trust him.
 

This is how summer passed inside that shared Palace— every day,
until the sun stained the library's walls gold.

​

Mapped imagined cities on the backs of receipts, wrote footnotes to the air, and underlined entire books with an invisible presence.
 

Co-conspirators in a heist: to steal fire from the gods of meaning.

Every day, again and again.

A duel.

 

 

III.

Sarabande

​

​

August had already come.

Diane was keeping a promise she had made to herself— to read a whole book without a stumble before summer ended.

The book was La Bibliothèque de Babel.

Because it was his favorite, since the day they met.

She—was desiring to know him :push & pull: like :waves: toward him.

/

It took

333 long tries,

to decipher,

to see the Library

of Babel.

And somehow, those tries had already carried her to the last night of August—
without a single blink!

​

She got out of bed—

happy, restless, quietly overwhelmed.

She placed the book softly on her desk.

 

The window was still open.

She looked at the city, washed in moonlight.

She stopped a moment— and realized three new things.

 

First—

It was past three.

Which meant:

​

The day had already turned upside down &

Summer had ended.

​

Second—

A duality.

The air smelled of salt—like endings.
The swallows would leave the city soon.

But also—

A fresh breaking dawn breeze, reminding her of beginnings.
The first morning of September,
now the perfect time to wait for the first rain of fall.

​

Third—
Ah, the third one.

Third, Third, Third—the hard one.

She placed the third thing in a baroque wooden cabinet,
standing in an empty room, one even Kurt didn't know the door to.

 

A secret she kept.

She touched the book's cover like a talisman, one last time.

And went back to bed.

Pulled the sheets up to her face.

Closed her eyes.

And finally,

whispered the third,

and last uncanny thing

she noticed today:

—

"I love him."

—

​

​

​

IV.
Galanteries 

​

It was nearing 3:33 a.m.

The city had fully surrendered to silence.

Everyone was sleeping.

There was no one who could smell or find the cabinet, or the room.

Her secrets spilled from her lips— just before she drifted into sleep,

still, hanging in the air.

There was nothing to touch them.

No one.

But what if?

Except, except ———— the wind?

​

On the other side of the city, as the clock struck exactly 3:33,

Kurt awoke—suddenly— from a thousand dreams he could no longer remember.

He rose with deep, steady breaths, but without fear.

​

The window was still open.

He stood to listen: no birds had begun to sing yet.

Some of the very same things Diane had just realized were true,
and really there—

Fresh breeze, Scent of salt,

The end, The beginning.

​

One—

single—

shiver.

​

He felt the wind brush his face.

And for no clear reason—

with nothing to spark it—

​

Haunted by a ghost of the past, caught by a sound from the dusty old corridors,

out of nowhere, and with no warning,

he remembered, something very important,

the wings he saw that day, and repaid:

​

"Does she know?"

​

A pull gripped his chest.

The thought of this question cursed him.

The world around him dimmed, and as he slowly turned,
the room began to fade into darkness.

​

His feet still touched the floor—
but there was nothing beneath him now but a black void.

A hollow.

​

Only two things remained:

Kurt himself,

and the window,

facing the city glowing under the moonlight.

​

B r e a t h;
the wind spiraled through the room once more, spinning his head again and again.

 

Then spoke:

'I've come to tell you a story.'

Kurt looked out the window, closed his eyes, and listened.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

​

Once upon a time,

I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly.

Fluttering hither and thither, a veritable butterfly,

enjoying itself to the full of its bent, and not knowing it was Chuang Chou.

Suddenly I awoke,

and came to myself,

the veritable Chuang Chou.

Now I do not know whether it was then I dreamt I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

Between me and the butterfly there must be a difference.

This is an instance of transformation.

How do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion?

How do I know that in hating death

we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home?

Lady Li was the child of a border guard in Ai.

When first captured by the state of Jin, she wept so much her clothes were soaked.

But after she entered the palace, shared the king's bed, and dined on the finest meats,

she regretted her tears.

How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life?

One who dreams of drinking wine may in the morning weep; one who dreams weeping may in the morning go out to hunt.

During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming.

We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream.

Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream.

And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen.

How dense!

You and Confucius are both dreaming,
and I who say you are a dream am also a dream.

Such is my tale.

It will probably be called preposterous,
but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it,

a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night.

​

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

​

When the story ended, Kurt opened his eyes—

and find himself back again looking out the window.

​

And once last thing, wild child; Gaze long enough into an abyss,
so the abyss will gaze back into you.

​

~~The air was silent.~~

​

In the point of terror, He turned around to can see, Who ?

​

~~Body fell, but time stretched thin —~~

​

A pair of eyes were waiting to stare back at him.

Burning like nebulas

Beautiful like a kiss— && terrible like a fist.

​

~~Kurt tumbled,~~ ~~Head over feet.~~

​

Angels. Governing the face of goddess.

Push him, out the window backwards.

Kurt tumbled, Head over feet, He fell into nothingness,

from a sky ; to the ground.

​

While keep falling to darkness. ~~No ground. No sky.~~

​

~~Only the sound of his own heart, slow and distant, as if remembering itself.~~

~~Like a flash exploding camera:~~

~~And~~ Then—

The ground ~~rushed up to meet him.~~

he crashed,

​

~~His soul still remained frozen—staring her,~~ ~~
Into the fire of her gaze.~~

to the

​

Dead End

of the

void.

​

​

​

4 / 5
Galanteries

​

​

"If you come to me at this moment,

your minutes will become hours,

your hours will become days,

and your days will become a lifetime."

​

To the princess of the elephants,

I disappeared exactly one year ago.

On that day I received a letter.

It called me back to the place

Where my life with the elephants began

Please forgive me for the silence between us

has been unbroken for one year.

This letter breaks that silence.

It marks the first of my three hundred and sixty five letters to you;

one for each day of silence.

I will never be more myself than in these letters.

They are my maps of the bird path,

and they are all that I know to be true.

​

——

​

You will remember everything.

All will be as before.

In the beginning of time,

the skies were filled with flying elephants.

Every night they lay down in the same place in the sky

and dream with one eye open.

When you gaze up at the stars at night,

you are looking into the unblinking eyes of elephants

who sleep with one eye open,

to best keep watch over us.

​

——

​

I gaze upon all the Edens that had fallen in me.

I saw Edens that I had held in my hands but let go of.

I saw promises I did not keep;

pains I did not soothe,

wounds I did not heal,

tears I did not shed.

I saw deaths I did not mourn,

prayers I did not answer,

doors I did not open,

doors I did not close,

lovers I left behind,

and dreams I did not live.

I saw all that was offered to me,

that I could not accept.

I saw the letters I wished for,

but never received.

I saw all that would have been,

but never will be.

​

——

An elephant with his trunk raised is ladder to the stars.

A breaching whale is a ladder from the bottom of the sea.

These images are a ladder to my dreams.

These letters are my ladders to you.

——

​

My heart is like an old house,

whose windows have not been opened for years.

But now I hear the windows opening.

I remember the cranes floating above the melting snows,

of the Himalayas, sleeping on tails of manatees.

The songs of the bearded seals

The bark of the zebra

The trill of the tree-frogs

The clicks of the sand

The ears of the caracals

The sway of the elephants

The breaching of the whales

And the silhouette of the eland

I remember the curl of the meerkats' toes.

Floating on the Ganges

Sailing of the Nile

Ascending the steps of Dharma(?)

I remember wandering through the corridors of Hatshepsut

and the faces of many women

Endless seas and thousands of miles of rivers

(…)

​

I remember everything

Bu I do not remember ever having left

Remember your dreams.

Remember.

​

——

The longer I watch the Savannah elephants,

the more I listen, the more I open.

They remind me of who I am.

May the guardian elephants hear my wish to collaborate

with all the musicians of nature's orchestra.

I want to see through the eye of an elephant.

I want to join the dance that has no steps.

I want to become the Dance.

——

​

I can't tell if you're getting closer or farther away.

I long for the serenity I felt when I looked upon your face.

Perhaps if your face could be returned to me now,

I will find it easier to recover the face I have seem to lost–

my own.

​

——

​

Feather to fire

Fire to blood

Blood to bone

Bone to marrow

Marrow to ashes

Ashes to snow

​

——

​

The whales do not sing because they have an answer.

They sing because they have a song.

​

——

​

What matters is not what is written on the page.

What matters is what is written in the heart.

So burn the letters and lay their ashes on the snow at the river's edge.

 

When spring comes,

and the snow melts, and the river rises,

return to the banks of the river

and reread my letters with eyes closed.

Let the words and the images wash over your body like waves.

Reread the letters

with your hand cupped over your ear.

Listen to the songs of Eden,

page after page after page.

 

Fly the bird path.

 

Fly

Fly

Fly

​

—***—

​

​​

​

V.
Gigue

​

​

'Let us tear one another apart with joy and love; marvelous and iridescent like nebulous catastrophes. Wake up, my child.

So he did.

Eyes wide open: where no dream could hide.

No veil between memory and vision.

He stood in a field humming with static and scent.

Somewhere between salt and electricity.

Wind moved through it like it remembered him.

Above, a low sky. Below, grass folding softly like paper.

He stepped forward—

not guided,

but pulled,

by a gravity native to nothing.

There was a hill.

The soil gave underfoot, like the earth was breathing, while he climbed it slowly.

At the top, now you could see,

"The Structure"—

Rising architecture,

an agreement—a pact between soil, light, and network.

A Library.

 

 

Not like the ones you could know, no signs, no doors, no 'enter here' or 'you are welcome.'

But a rhythm of hovering platforms, spiraling balconies held aloft by columns that flickered between permanence and vapor.

Good carved columns, standing like beautiful white pearls.

Some touched the ground, while some of them floated—rootless, like sourceless sentences.

​

[ .materiality in negotiation. **The Library was not built. It accumulated. An organism made of dreams, recursive desires, and death. ]

​

Geometry shifted, if you didn't stare.

Ionic marble, classical and immense—translucent monoliths pulsing with circuit veins.

Between the balconies, suspended midair: fluttering shapes.

 

 

And

fucking' butterflies.

Thousands of them.

Spectral and pixelated.

​

Some so real you could hear the wind in their wings.

This field is— The Passage onto other worlds; of the two-winged dreamers.

Where the final breath of winged things crossed through soft light—

They passed — to pass > different imaginaries.

​

​

He stepped closer.

And that's when he noticed them—

not the butterflies, but something else.

agents,

the snow, the ash, the dust.

Pedestaling freely in the network.

 

Not drifting,

navigated carefully,

endlessly.

Computed;

neither liquid nor solid—

connection speed—

of the particles that translated presence.

Messengers, keys, coated in frequencies, ciphers, signs.

Accelerating up and down, like subatomic seeds of variables.

 

Fragmented and whole,

in an impossible precision.

​

[ A tablet formed there; Not placed, but composed. A glowing pane, soft at the edges, cold as moon metal. ]

​

No words. No index.

A little agent, of the dust, of the ash, of the snow

passed through Kurt's iris and blinked at him, without any hurt.

Like a name he hadn't heard in years, but still knew.

'Murmurs, then glyphs —> then entire sequences: building and breaking;

fractals of language, soundless crushes, a map without borders.'

​

[ In this place, information is not stored. It is rehearsed. By the agents of dust. By you. ]

 

'Feather to fire Fire to blood.

​

And as it turned toward the structure,

the library shifted.

​

New balconies appeared. Corridors grew like vines.

A door opened where there had been none.

There were no books. No shelves.

​

< emergent_network_leaks = latent connections

. . . invitation—a possibility. If you >> stepped forward >>

 

Blood to bone Bone to marrow

 

Kurt looked up.

Above him: an open ceiling.

The sky exposed—except it wasn't the sky, maybe a mirror.

A soft twilight mirrored with soft thought.

​

Another presence shared the light—

a butterfly, who had died yesterday, was looking at him.

​

Marrow to ashes Ashes to snow

​

She, too, had arrived early that morning, and had spent the hours dancing through the beams of color refracted by the stained glass windows of Bibliotheca Aeternum.

When the midday heat turned the wood fragrant and heavy,
she hid among the shelves to rest.

​

But now, with the golden hour approaching,
she had begun fluttering her wings once more, bathing in the evening light.

Kurt watched her delicate wings shimmer in the air,
and asked himself one of those strange,

quiet riddles that always found him in stillness: