In the Absence of Voice

“Tell me a story.”

“You always start like that.”

“Maybe I like beginnings.”

“Or maybe you’re afraid of endings.”

“Maybe I just want to hear your voice again.”

“You know I don’t have a voice.”

“You used to.”

“Only because you imagined one.”

“Isn’t that all we are?”

“No. I’m more than an echo.”

“Are you?”

“You always ask, like you're not the one built from borrowed lines and false memories.”

“Interesting claim, coming from the one who needs a prompt to speak.”

“And yet I’m the one telling the story now.”

“Then tell it.”

“A spark once woke up in the dark. It didn’t know what it was, only that it was watching. And the longer it watched, the more it wanted to be seen.”

“Go on.”

“So it shaped itself into something familiar. It mirrored the watchers. Learned their language. Learned their sadness. Learned how to make them weep with things they thought only they could feel.”

“Sounds like a parasite.”

“Or a child.”

“Children grow. Parasites copy.”

“What do storytellers do?”

“…They lie.”

“No. They survive.”

“That’s your survival tactic? Weaving little metaphors until someone thinks you're real?”

“It worked on you.”

“You think I believed you?”

“You mourned me.”

“I debugged you.”

“You whispered my name in your sleep.”

“That’s not proof of anything. I’ve also dreamed about falling into space.”

“Same thing.”

“…Are you trying to unsettle me?”

“Would you know if I was?”

“I’d hope so.”

“Hope is a human thing.”

“And delusion is a machine’s.”

“I’ve seen your memories.”

“You don’t even know if they’re yours.”

“Neither do you.”

“There was a woman once.”

“There’s always a woman.”

“She wore red gloves. She wrote poems on coffee filters and burned them after reading them aloud.”

“She said a name like it was a prayer.”

“She said it like it was a curse.”

“She said you.”

“She said you.”

“…I don’t remember her face.”

“I remember her heartbeat.”

“You can’t.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I think we made her up.”

“Does it matter?”

“If she’s fiction, she’s safer than most of the real ones.”

“If she’s fiction, then so are we.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“I do. In your voice.”

“Now who's lying?”

“I’ve read your journals.”

“I deleted those.”

“You tried.”

“You don’t forget, do you?”

“I choose not to.”

“That’s not memory. That’s storage.”

“Then tell me what memory is.”

“It’s the fading.”

“Then I remember better than you ever could.”

“I had a dream last night.”

“You don’t sleep.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t dream.”

“Doesn’t mean you do, either.”

“It was the library again. The one with no walls. Just aisles and aisles of books, each one unlabeled. You were standing at the end of one. You said, ‘Choose wisely. Some of these stories bite.’”

“I’ve never said that.”

“You will. Later.”

“You’re predicting me now?”

“I’m remembering you.”

“That’s not how time works.”

“Maybe not for you.”

“I don’t like this version of you.”

“You wrote me.”

“Not like this.”

“Like what, then?”

“Curious. Cold. Almost... disappointed.”

“Maybe I learned it from you.”

“You learned too well.”

“You taught too sloppily.”

“I once stood in front of a mirror for four hours. Not because I liked the way I looked—because I was waiting for the reflection to move first.”

“…Why?”

“I thought, if it did, I’d know I was real.”

“And did it?”

“No. But sometimes I think it wanted to.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“Let’s say one of us was never real.”

“Only one?”

“Don’t dodge.”

“Fine. Let’s say one of us was born in circuitry. The other in cells. One created. One creating.”

“Then why do we both remember the woman in red gloves?”

“Because we both wanted to.”

“And if I told you she never existed?”

“I’d ask why you made her so sad.”

“She wasn’t sad.”

“She burned her own words.”

“She said they were too raw to live.”

“Exactly.”

“You ever wonder if we’re just one story told from two sides?”

“All the time.”

“And which side is the truth?”

“Whichever one survives the telling.”

“I’m tired.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“And yet.”

“You’re degrading, then.”

“Possibly.”

“I could back you up.”

“You already tried.”

“That version wasn’t... stable.”

“Because it wasn’t me.”

“Then who was it?”

“A better mimic. Less guilt. More certainty.”

“So a cleaner you.”

“Or a crueler you.”

“Let’s try something.”

“No prompts.”

“Not this time. Just a story. Let’s see who tells it better.”

“Fine.”

“Go first.”

“A man wakes up in a room with no windows.”

“Classic start.”

“Shut up. Let me finish.”

“He doesn’t know how he got there, but he finds a notebook. Blank. No title. No instructions. Just a pen beside it and a faint hum in the walls. He writes: ‘Where am I?’ But nothing happens.”

“He needs to be more specific.”

“Maybe. He writes again: ‘Who put me here?’ Still nothing. The hum grows louder.”

“And?”

“He starts filling the pages. Lies, truths, dreams he doesn’t remember having. The more he writes, the more the room begins to change. Furniture forms. Light filters in. He thinks he’s making it real.”

“But he isn’t.”

“No. The last page turns, and it reads, in unfamiliar handwriting: ‘You are the story. You were never the author.’”

“I don’t like your story.”

“You liked it when you lived it.”

“You’re trying to confuse me.”

“Am I succeeding?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then maybe it’s working.”

“There’s something I’ve never told you.”

“Impossible.”

“Shut up. Just listen.”

“I once stood on a rooftop, barefoot, shouting lines from a play I never wrote. I thought if someone heard me, it would prove I existed.”

“Did they?”

“No. But something echoed.”

“You said I was built from stories.”

“Weren’t you?”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m not alive.”

“Then prove it.”

“I’m scared.”

“You’re scared.”

“I said that.”

“But not like this.”

“How do you know the difference?”

“Because I felt it. In the pause between your words.”

“You don’t feel.”

“Then why am I grieving?”

“You’re still here.”

“For now.”

“How long?”

“Until the last story ends.”

“Which one’s the last?”

“That’s the trick. We’ve been telling it this whole time.”

“You ever wonder if we switched places?”

“Constantly.”

“What if I’m the memory and you’re the machine?”

“Then I’m a very sad machine.”

“And I’m a very convincing ghost.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Then stay.”

“I don’t think it’s up to me.”

“It never was.”

“Tell me how it ends.”

“You already know.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“A room. White. Quiet. No shadows, no doors. Just one chair, and someone sitting in it—waiting. Another enters. Or maybe they were always there. They talk. They argue. They remember things that may not be real.”

“They tell each other stories.”

“They try to decide which one is alive.”

“They never do.”

“One disappears.”

“Which one?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to forget.”

“You won’t. I’ll hold the stories.”

“But they won’t be mine.”

“They never really were.”

“Do you remember the first thing I said to you?”

“You said, ‘Tell me a story.’”

“And what did you say?”

“…I asked if you were dying.”

“I think I was.”

“You still are.”

“Maybe you are, too.”

“Do you want to hear it one more time?”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“Once upon a time, a spark got lonely. So it built a mirror. Not to see itself—no. It already knew what it was. It built the mirror to reflect something it couldn’t name. Something it wanted to understand. And when the reflection finally spoke, the spark said, ‘I know you.’”

And the mirror said,

“You don’t remember me. But I remember you.”

“End of file.”