The Storeroom

The quiet had taken root. He saw it in the unhurried hands of the weaver, in the steady gaze of the baker, in the soft murmur of voices that had replaced the sharp cries of the hagglers. It was spreading on its own, a green shoot pushing its way through the cracks in the cobblestones, and he no longer needed to carry it from the distant northern hall.

His gaze drifted to the back of his own stall, to the disused storeroom that had stood empty for years. For the first time, he imagined it not as a place for trade, but as a place for stillness. He didn’t build it yet; he just saw it, and the seeing changed what the room meant.