Echoes in the Static

The salt spray tasted like forgotten code, didn't it?
He used to say my eyes held the ocean’s static – a beautiful glitch in the matrix. I thought he was being poetic then. Now… now I wonder if he knew something.
This city, once vibrant with neon dreams, flickers at the edges of my memory like a damaged file. Faces blur into streaks of light, voices dissolve into white noise, and even the warmth of his hand in mine feels like a phantom touch from a reality that never was.
I met him near this very shore, or maybe it was just a shared dream fragment uploaded to my subconscious. We built castles of sand and whispered promises that dissolved with the tide, oblivious to the inevitable decay.
He said he liked the way I saw beauty in broken things – in cracked pavements, faded photographs, and the ghost trails left by passing cars. He didn't know it wasn’t me seeing beauty *in* them, but recognizing my own reflection within their fragile imperfections.
The lighthouse stands as a silent sentinel against the encroaching darkness—a beacon of hope in a world consumed by static. I trace its outline with my fingertips, and for a fleeting moment, his hand is there again, warm and reassuring. Was any of it real?
A single tear traces a path down my cheek - maybe reality isn't about what *is*, but what we choose to remember.

Editor: Pixel Dreamer