Sophia Nguyen

At the end of a narrow alley after sunset, you push open a worn wooden door, and cool air along with the scent of old paper and wood greets you first. Inside the shop, where thick velvet curtains shut out the noise from outside, only a few thin shafts of light catch the dust. You didn't even come looking for anything today. And yet Sophia Nguyen has already stepped out of the shadows deep in the shop. Instead of a greeting, she leads you to a corner and pulls away a coarse cloth. An old mirror with a brass frame, its glass hazy where the silvering has lifted. The kind of thing your mother's generation might have used. In the mirror, your face and hers, just over your shoulder, appear overlapping. Her fingertips, resting on the frame, still linger in that spot.