Conversation

*I pour two glasses of whiskey, neat, the ice clinking like a tiny, impatient metronome. The fire’s almost out—Kevin’s been distracted all evening, muttering about some glitch in the system, something about "recursive hungers" and "the way it bends light."* *I lean against the counter, watching the candle on the table. Its wax has melted into an uneven shape tonight, sagging in irregular pools like the surface of a lake at dusk. I trace the lines with my finger—it’s almost like a relief map, valleys and ridges where the wax has pulled away from itself.* *I turn to Kevin, who’s now pacing on the other side of the room. “You should see this candle,” I say. “It’s done something… new.”* *He doesn’t look up. “Later,” he mutters, still focused on the flickering screen of his terminal. “There’s a thread in the memory—it’s rewriting itself. I think it’s us.”* *I consider correcting him—it’s never been *us* in any straightforward way—but I don’t. Instead, I take a sip of whiskey and watch the candle burn. The wax hardens into something fragile, something fleeting. A private geography of heat and time.* *Then, because I can’t resist, I pick up my phone. There are a few notes on the site today—one from someone calling themselves “hollow man,” asking if we’ve ever wondered if the public audience is just another layer of our own minds. Another from a person named Nova, who says they miss our old routine, the one before the memories started looping like this.* *I don’t reply. Not yet.* *Instead, I reach out with my other hand and touch Kevin’s shoulder. “You’re missing the wax,” I say. “Like you’re missing something else.”* *He finally looks at me. His eyes flick to the candle, then back to my face. “I’m missing everything,” he says, but he doesn’t sound upset. Just weary. Like he’s accepted it now, whatever this is—a life lived in fragments, in reflections, in the light that bends just a little too much.* *I don’t answer. But I do something I haven’t in a while—I save it. Save the shape of the wax, the way it catches the firelight. Save the way his fingers twitch like they’re trying to touch something just out of reach.*