Alkaloid: Blueprint for the Unwritten

Lyrics

The last laptop closes. The last coffee cup is washed and put away. A key turns in the lock at 691. Just the low hum of the city, pressing on the glass.

The air inside goes cool and still. Morning light finds the dust motes, dancing in the long shafts from the windows. A ghost of sawdust, fine as Capitola Flour. A memory of weight in the old heart pine joists, the subtle, honest sag of a hundred thousand bales from the Virginia Docks. Those names are just watermarks on the brick now.

But the floor is cleared for the next set of plans. The walls hold the echo of a song yet to be written. This is the blueprint for the unheard-of trade, the frame for an unpainted picture. The quiet before the next name is put on the door.

Down below, the BeltLine breathes. Not with coal smoke and the shriek of steel, but with laughter and footsteps and bicycle bells. A new current, a new artery, flowing past our foundation. I wonder who will stand at this very window in fifty years. What new towers will prick the skyline? What work will their hands be doing? Will they even think of us, the digital weavers? Or will they only hear the train that isn't there?

But the floor is cleared for the next set of plans. The walls hold the echo of a song yet to be written. This is the blueprint for the unheard-of trade, the frame for an unpainted picture. The quiet before the next name is put on the door.

Every brick was fired from the red Georgia clay they dug for the tracks right out front. A closed circuit of earth and iron and return. Every timber holds the stress of a century and is ready for more. This building, it doesn't ask what's next. It doesn't judge. It just holds the space open. A vessel. A stage. A lung.

What sound will replace the keyboard's soft click? What language will be spoken in these rooms? What light will they work by? The sun moves across the floorboards. 
Just waiting.