Siting on the desk, the light streaming through the window, the dust slowly whirls through the air. Each particle lazily making its own way through the columns of shine. Settling on the keys of the old typewriter one by one, the passage of time is marked by the feathers of dust.
A clock in the background slowly ticks: the gears creaking against another and marching onward towards the next chime. A crack along the long brown oak sides grows slightly larger with each year, the weight of the ages pushing down and out from the heavy decorum mounted on top. No mouse runs along the sides, nor up and down the cabinet. Only the ticking breaks the silence on calm days, occasionally joined by the lullaby of the wind during the fall.
The paper left lying on the desk bears the markings of its former owner. The half finished scrawl of idea, and the half finished novels hanging from the typewriter. Its platen and feed roller notched and worn by the many pages consumed throughout the year. The emblazoned decal of a family crest proudly stands out from the dust around it. The silver outline and gold insets gaudy to a different age, yet noble for the makers.
Within the rollers the last half of a letter unwritten. The words picked carefully, a small tale from a large and unrecounted life. For years left alone and unread, the author's departure the faintest of memory to the greying ink. The paper yellowed over time and damp from the chill blown through the ajar window nearby, the faint scent of lilacs sweetening the otherwise musty note.
Unfinished words a mystery, the rest of the house is quiet. The other rooms, unlike the old study, are in disrepair. Holes in the walls and shrubbery climbing through them, nature slowly reclaims the halls once raised by the community. The dust on the shelves, coating the cursive texts and great works of their times, cares little for what meaning lies underneath each binding.
Yet here they remain, perhaps the only thing left betraying a human presence. The hurries of one day, the boredom of another, and the experience of a single period in life written out for another. Picked up by another, the signs and figures on the page may mean everything, or be a puzzling adjective of a history long past.