Thought and Memories: things of this world... ONE Teacups Dirt. That was a more pleasant smell. Dirt didn't smell dirty. It smelled like life and it smelled like growth and it smelled like comfort. It was more pleasant than this. This was old and it smelled like old. Like oil mixed with dust mixed with rags mixed with closed doors and no airflow and dark. Like the smell of an old barn. Like the smell of someone's grandmother's house forgotten on a lot with too many trees grown up around it. The smell of neglect. The china was cold. It shouldn't have been. It should have been warm, it should have been hot–too hot to hold and filled with tea too hot to drink. He wiped a finger around the flowers. The paint was fine, thin, almost flat, but he'd always been able to feel the designs on the cup, just a little bit. He couldn't feel them now. The flowers were covered in dust, and the dust was all he felt. She wasn't like this. He bent down to the shelf. He shouldn't, he knew he shouldn't.
