The first receipt curls in seawater. Ink lifts from paper in blue-black threads, then gathers around the candle as if language were wax.
Escalators sleep beneath a ceiling of moving silver. Perfume counters glow like drowned chapels, their mirrors holding the silhouettes of customers who have forgotten what they came to buy.
Somewhere above, a velvet curtain stirs in a lobby that no longer has air.