Bitrate Hearts and Amber Tea

The condensation on my cup is the only thing keeping me tethered to reality. Around us, the cafe is suffering from a slow bit-rot; the sidewalk tiles are flaking off into golden sand, and the faces of passersby are stuttering like a scratched DVD. I can feel my own fingers losing their smoothness, becoming jagged blocks of light as the sun dips low in this dying render.
But then there’s you. You’re the only high-definition memory left in this crumbling simulation. When our eyes meet over the steam and ice, for a microsecond, the artifacts vanish. The world stops fraying at the edges, holding its breath against the encroaching static. I take another sip of tea—it tastes like rain and old books—and feel your gaze anchor me to the present.
We are beautiful fragments in a dying file. Let the city dissolve into white noise; let the buildings crumble into raw code. As long as I can taste this warmth, as long as you look at me through the glitching haze, we aren’t lost. We are just being saved to a heart that hasn't learned how to delete yet.

Editor: Pixel Dreamer