Nothing is permanent.

Not even something etched into metal

With something so unending and omnipotent as pure light.

The metal and the air bond

And atom by atom data peels away

Word for word, line by line, picture by picture.

I didn't know information could rot.

That something I'd always hold true

Wouldn't stay in stasis when I put it back in the drawer.

That it would change when I took it out again, too long a time later.

It makes sense, that you wouldn't wait for me.

My mind just can't comprehend it.

I've stopped updating, I've run out of storage.

All files in my brain corrupted.

Still, that's a useless excuse.

You deserve better.

But you took up so much space in me

And I liked it that way.

When I thought I'd fixed myself enough to read you again,

I put you in the DVD drive and pressed play,

Without considering whether or not we could still work together.

Whether or not you still wanted to.

ERROR: SYSTEM CORRUPTION, SELFISH.EXE CANNOT STOP RUNNING

When we met again for the first time in years, everything that I wasn't smart enough to worry about came to pass.

We didn't click anymore.

We once both ran on C++, but you've upgraded to Scala and I can't follow the words you say, only the shapes your mouth makes.

For the first time I'm worried.

I'll be shut down, dissembled into pieces if I can't keep up with the newer models.

I've lived a long life sure, but information rots and everything I have to offer is humus on a jungle floor to them

And to you.

I try my old case on for size,

The one I wore during my time with you,

A last ditch attempt to see if you remember me.

I laugh at the wrong times, I embarrass myself, even as I'm contorting, clownlike, to fit in the old honking shoes.

I always thought we had a matching pair but was that fucking naive of me, even then?

CLIPPY: Uh oh! It looks like you're trying to access a file that no longer exists!

At the end of that last day when I was still convinced there was many more to come,

We promised that this was to be the start of a new page. Two years later and our folder's still empty.

I hope you missed me. I think you didn't.

Sometimes I look through our old emails. They're a mixed bag.

I tried to text you once, you didn't respond. Maybe certain relationships only exist through email.

Maybe once they'd invented the telephone loves begun in letters faded away.

Maybe we were never truly compatible.

All I know, is that I do miss you.

But I have nothing left to say.

Maybe every friendship has a quota of information.

Maybe ours just ran out.

© Leila Kadar