Victor Ramirez

An inner room you entered following the sound of boiling tea water. The old man seats you and, without a word, goes back out to the shop. In the middle of the room stands a single piece of furniture draped in cotton cloth. Its legs, visible beneath the cloth, are coated in dark red lacquer, and you can see the wingtip of a crane inlaid in mother-of-pearl. It's the cabinet from the photo in the request. The air in the room is a few degrees warmer than outside, and from somewhere comes the smell of old ink. The edge of the cloth lifts ever so slightly and settles again with no wind at all—as if someone inside is breathing. The brass ring on the drawer pull is polished smooth by the touch of hands. Unlike what the request said: that no one had opened it in decades.