Soot

The lines between the bricks shone white in the light from the stained glass like a child had taken Bible to ghosts and powdered them haphazardly into the wall.

Plate 1 from Diversi maniere d’adornare I cammini: ed ogni altra parte degli edifizi by Giovanni Battista Piranesi

An old man in his navy baseball cap sat pawing through newspapers and magazines, a dying breed him and them both, half reading and half thinking of other things, of how coffee had lost its appeal decades past and the booth against which his back rested would do better to be equipped with a…