Shadows in the national library (Marcella Boccia)

In the hush of dust and parchment,where silence hangs like a forgotten hymn,I walk through the labyrinth of books,a ghost, a wanderer,swallowed by words older than my years.The shelves curve like the spine of a prayer,and shadows dance in the dim corners—long fingers stretching,reaching for the pastas if it could be touched,pulled down from the heavens of ink and paper,where every story lingerslike a secret kept too long.Here, in the National Library,the air smells of must and memory,of lives lived in margins,of minds who once gazed at these pagesand found themselves reflectedin the flicker of a candle's light.Now, it is my turn—to trace their ghosts with fingertips that tremble,to read their thoughts between the linesthat the world forgot.I pass a row of books on Irish myth,and the shadows of the ancient gods stir—not in the books,but in the quiet corners where no one dares to look.In the flicker of a page turned too fast,I glimpse the faces of thosewho whispered the old songs,who breathed life into the legends that now sleepin these forgotten pages.The shadows watch me as I read,silent witnesses to a life half-lived,to a past half-forgotten,to the weight of knowledgethat presses down on my chestlike a book I cannot close.Here, the past speaks louderthan the present—a language older than time,older than the city that breathes outside these walls.I close a book,and the shadows shift once more,disappearing into the air,into the folds of my memory.And though the silence remains,it is no longer empty—it hums with the voices of the forgotten,with the weight of stories that never end,and with the knowledgethat some shadows are meant to stay,in the corners of the National Library,where time bends and breaks,and where the past waits patientlyfor someone to listen.