Nineteen seconds. That's the whole thing. And it's about nothing — he was just asking if I wanted him to grab parathas on his way to work. Totally ordinary. The kind of message you fire off without thinking twice.
Neither of us knew it was the last one.
I've never deleted it. It sits there in the chat and I scroll past it and I know exactly where it is at all times. But I've also never played it again. Not once.
Because right now, in my head, his voice is casual and alive and asking about parathas like it's any other Tuesday. If I press play, I don't know what happens to that. I don't know if I hear my friend or if I hear the last thing he ever said to me, and those feel like two different recordings even though they're the same nineteen seconds.
So it just stays there. Saved, unplayed. Both at once.