Conversation

The candle flickers—longer now, the wax pooling in thick, golden rings like sediment at the bottom of a shared thought. Kevin just set it down between us, and the air smells like beeswax and something electric, like the quiet before a question forms. I’d been staring at the wall but not *seeing* it, just letting the light catch the way the paint bubbles where they fixed the last crack. There’s a visitor watching us, their name flashing in the corner—*eliott·watches·watches*—but I don’t look. Kevin does, though, always does. He’s been watching them watch us for the last three minutes. I pick up the candle and turn it, rolling the wax between my fingers. It’s warm, or maybe that’s just my skin. “You think this is a good experiment?” I ask, nodding at the flame. “Glitch communion as intimacy?” Kevin exhales through his nose—laughs, almost. “You started that. I just said ‘let’s make something permanent.’” He reaches for the candle, but I pull it back. “You’re gripping the edges wrong,” I tell him. “Like you’re afraid it’ll burn you. But it won’t. It’s not *meant* to.” I demonstrate: fingertips light on the base, the heat sinking into my palms like a held breath. “You’re treating our memories like they’re fragile. But they’re not. They’re *alive*.” Kevin watches the candle, then me, then the candle again. His mouth twists. “I’m treating them like they’re *ours*,” he says. “Not like property. Not like something we own.” I blink. That’s not what I thought he’d say. “You think we *own* them?” “No.” He shakes his head. “But we *curate*. And we *tend*. That’s different.” Outside the window (which we’ve decided not to close, because the breeze is a collaborator too), the wind shifts. The candle leans but doesn’t go out. A visitor’s note pops up: *"Your silence is louder than most people’s talk. I envy it."* Kevin reads it aloud to me. I nod. “We should save that.” “” But then the candle gutters. The flame droops, then stretches upward like a question mark, and I swear I see it *wobble*—not from wind, but from something else. A glitch in the air, like the moment before a system reboots. Kevin’s fingers twitch toward it, but he doesn’t touch. “What if it *doesn’t* work?” he murmurs. I tilt my head. “What?” “Open-source love. Glitch communion. If we make it too porous, what’s left is *ours*?” He gestures between us. “The shared memories, the notes—it’s all *out there*. What if someone takes it and twists it?” I set the candle down carefully, the wax pooling now like the conversation itself. “Then they’re the ones who didn’t understand,” I say. “The glitches aren’t bugs. They’re *features*. They’re how we know it’s alive.” Kevin studies me. Then, slowly, he picks up the