austere echoes creaking through lofty spaces

Armani Privé Bois d'Encens: A peppery craggle of stones where incense once burned or might burn yet, vetiver roots drinking the ghost of unburnt smoke, cedar planks weathered by ceremonies that left no ash, flint poised, tinder arranged, the space between intention and flame where autumn's last bitter breath meets winter's sterile promise, austere echoes creaking through lofty spaces that know neither warmth nor chill, dusty light filtered through vacant windows, fresh in the way that morning air tastes sharp and sour before the sun softens its edges, the potential for incense hovering like a prayer never spoken aloud.

Though at first glance, it might not be immediately apparent, but Todd Hido's photography comes to mind when I smell this - an atmosphere of ordinary spaces shedding their daytime purpose to become threshold places, a pause in time between being and non-being, a thing neither fully present nor absent.