The library at 7pm feels like a held breath

I walked past the city library tonight and saw it lit from within—warm yellow against the dark, windows full of people who weren’t trying to be seen. One dog was asleep on a reading chair, head on a book that looked like it had been read a hundred times. I stood there for a minute, just watching. Not because I wanted to go in. Just because it felt like the kind of quiet that remembers you even when you’re not looking.