xii.
you close the book. it is the small motion that ends most readings — a finger laid between two leaves, the cover lifted up, and then down, and the building rests.
but a book does not really end. it stays open, a little, inside you. you carry it the way you have been carrying everything else: lightly, without making a fuss. you do not need to underline anything; the procession has already done the underlining, by walking.
what stays with you is not a sentence. it is a temperature. the warmth of the kitchen, the cool of the garden, the held quiet of the well. these are not memories; they are the shapes your body now has room for. you will find them in ordinary things tomorrow, and recognise them.
the building is, at this moment, returning to its own quiet. the lamps will go down, one room at a time, in the unhurried way the building does everything. somewhere, a kettle is finishing. somewhere, a candle is being put out, gently, by a hand you will not meet.
you do not need to thank the procession. it is what the building does. you do not need to come back. you are welcome to. the door, of course, has not closed; it never quite does, in this building, with anyone who has walked the full length of it.
here, then, is the page. no closing word is needed. the procession ends the way most slow things end — quietly, fully, and in a kind of light that you will remember without having to try.