>_ Crash.

Too full of crap. Too many problems. Too much running (at any one time). It just doesn’t work anymore. This is a permanent fatal error? Type 0. Type more. Backup (selectively). Uninstall. Empty the trash with nostalgia. Those silly attachments: those unread files, unopened folders. “That’s made some space.” All that space - all that vast empty space just waiting to be filled - pictures, ideas, words and memories. Reinstall. Wait. Watch the clock, the date. Don’t look at the trash. Suddenly all is a new version.

>_ “You shouldn’t have any memory problems now.”

Close the laptop as if it were a box. Outside, back in the past, there are twinkly lights lit up like synapses, memories wrapped in plastic like the smell of old tinsel on real and severed trees. Frozen sparks. Inside there is candlelight, untroubled by the wind - bright, orange, steady. Safe. We are in its glow, months before closing time. Every sip is a sentence, every bite a Sunday roast.

Backpack, books, laptop. You are allowed only two items you do not need. The toothbrush? The unwritten-in journal? Buy a new one of each. All this stuff - this junk, this crap, these unread pages and unopened books.

>_ “You can’t take it with you, you know.”

Take care, of all of it.