Conservatory Essay
The fever never belonged to the flower
Inside the orchid rooms, desire was trained into a climate: iron, steam, brass labels, and a silence that made collectors mistake possession for devotion.
At seven each morning, the south annex exhaled before the doors were opened. The glass sweated, the iron ribs darkened, and every Cattleya in the upper house appeared to have arrived in secret, bearing news from a country the visitors could only pronounce after reading the brass tag.
The rarest bloom in the room was not the orchid, but the permission to want it without apology.