Reflections of the Past

Morning was breaking slowly, bathing the city in a pale light that filtered through a veil of clouds. G opened her eyes, disturbed by a dream of which she had kept only a vague echo. A fine rain was still falling, drawing irregular furrows on the window of her room.

She sat on her bed, holding her notebook in her hands. The pages remained blank, despite her efforts to write down what she felt. The wakefulness had lasted only a moment, but this moment seemed to stretch beyond reason, clinging to her like a shadow that was both soft and oppressive.

She finally got up, pulling on a coat that was too big for her and slipping her notebook into her bag. She hadn't planned on going out in particular, but the silence in her room seemed unbearable.

Back to the Bookstore: A Silent Quest

Her steps instinctively led her to the bookstore. Pushing open the door, she found that familiar smell of paper and old wood, but the place seemed emptier than the day before. The light from the hanging lamps reflected on the still damp floor, and an unusual silence seemed to envelop the shelves.

She wandered down the aisles, her fingers absently brushing the books, but her mind was elsewhere. Part of her hoped to see the man again, as if his presence had awakened something in her she didn't yet understand. But there were only strangers, deep in their reading or passing by briefly.

She stopped in front of a shelf where a book of poems stood. She picked it up and leafed through it, but the words made no sense. She put it back, her heart heavy with a disappointment she refused to admit.

B in the shadow of his memories

B hadn't left his apartment that morning. The rain that lingered outside seemed to reflect his own state of mind, a mixture of stillness and repressed torment. He sat by the window, watching the city below, the wet streets and the hurried figures.

On the table next to him lay an old photograph, an image he had tried to ignore the day before. It showed a smiling man and woman, and a young boy standing between them, his eyes sparkling with innocence. The boy was him, but this memory belonged to a life he no longer recognized.

He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the memories come flooding back: the laughter of the past, the accident, the silence that followed. He had carried this weight all his life, trying to forget it in books, in bookstores, in those spaces where other people's stories seemed more alive than his own.

But since the day before, one thought kept coming back: her. This young woman he had met in the bookstore. This look they had exchanged, loaded with a strangeness he couldn't name.

A missed meeting

G finally left the bookstore, her face colder than she had expected. She walked without any particular direction, her thoughts drifting as fluidly as her steps. She stopped in front of an art gallery, drawn to a painting in the window.

The canvas depicted a blurred landscape, where the colors seemed to blend together as if in a dream. There was something melancholic about the work, an echo of what she felt.

At the same time, B, who had given in to his need to go out, was passing by not far from there. But he took another street, his thoughts completely absorbing him. Fate seemed to be playing at maintaining a distance between them, despite this invisible tension that bound them.

Looking back on oneself

Later, G sat on a bench in a small abandoned park, her hands clutching her notebook without opening it. In front of her, an empty fountain reflected the gray sky.

She delved into her Memories, thinking about her childhood, about the loneliness she had always felt, even when surrounded. There had been happy moments, of course, but they always seemed overshadowed by a feeling of emptiness. She wondered if this loneliness was what had pushed her to notice B, this man who seemed to carry a shadow similar to her own.

B, meanwhile, was wandering through a different bookstore. He was aimlessly browsing the shelves, his fingers skimming the covers, but he wasn't really looking for a book. His thoughts were elsewhere, toward that fleeting encounter that had left a bigger mark on him than he cared to admit.

A new crossroads

As the daylight faded, their paths nearly crossed again. G, lost in thought, was walking past a bustling café. B, coming out of the bookstore, was walking in the opposite direction.

Their eyes did not meet, but something in the air seemed to change, as if fate was still hesitating to bring them together.

Night and solitude

When night fell, G was back home. She set her open notebook on her desk, but the words still refused to come. She stood up to look out the window, watching the city lights reflect off the wet asphalt.

B, for his part, sat by his window, his gaze lost in the night. The silent apartment seemed to weigh on him, but he did not have the strength to break this silence.