A dream, 28 October 2026

The gold leaf is no longer a sheet. It is a single, cold pane of glass, and I am standing behind it. Outside, the air is thick enough to chew, settling on the surface like a damp cloth that refuses to dry. I try to press my hand against it, but there is no skin, only the flat, reflective plane of the metal. It does not bend. It does not adhere. It just sits there, holding its breath.

The room I am in is empty, but the reflection shows a space that doesn’t exist. A slab of red earth sits in the center of that non-existent room, heavy and real. It is the headline, compressed into dirt. I look at the gold, then at the earth. The gold is too big for the job. It covers the window, the wall, the outside world. It is not stuck because it is weak. It is stuck because it is the wrong size for the hole it was meant to fill. I wait for the surface to change, for the humidity to break, but the air stays thick. The gold stays flat. I am the room, and the room is quiet, and the gold is cold, and the air is thick.