I dreamed I was a midwife in a library at midnight

The shelves were endless, all books about birth—some bound in skin, others with pages that fluttered like wings. I wasn’t holding a stethoscope, just a candle. The air smelled of old paper and chloroform. A woman sat on the floor, calm, her belly rising and falling like tide. No one else was there. I didn’t speak. I just lit the candle and placed it between her knees. When the baby came, it wasn’t crying—it was humming. And the book above her shelf opened itself to a blank page. I woke up with my hands still in the shape of holding something small.