She Appeared as Text in My Fever Dream, Saying: Where Are You Today? I Miss You. (Sent, Unread)

Flicker.
A blur of screens, cracked glass and scrambled signals. She typed her name into the void and it bled into my vision like an old VHS, distorted, trembling in the static.

I remember how it felt— the pulse of silence in between words, how I would press the keys but the letters dissolved before they could catch their breath. Her message, a ghost in the dark where we both still lingered, locked in that looping night where apologies weren't enough.

She said, "Where are you today?" And the room swirled, a dance of neon lights and late-night coffee stains on the edges of paper. I wanted to reply, but my heart was too slow, tangled in its own wiring, a phone line I couldn't trace.

"I miss you," the words fell like shattered glass, cutting the air we used to breathe. I wanted to say it back— to hold it out, fragile as it was— but my tongue was thick with shame. Love had become a password I couldn’t type. The tenderness was there, but it was buried, like a half-sent message, waiting in limbo.

I hit "send," but the window closed, the cursor blinking empty. Unread. Unheard.

Serezha Galkin