The Voice That Stays

Time isn’t fair. It wouldn’t dare pull you from your grave, yet it pulls at me every night, with that single thread of sound I can’t untangle from silence. The voicemail is short— five seconds, maybe six— but it carries the weight of years. Your laugh slips through first, low and familiar, then the pause, then the way you clear your throat before saying my name like you were always surprised I’d called. It’s nothing, really— just a scrap of sound, a timestamp from a life before the ground swallowed you whole. Yet memory is greedy. It hoards what little I have left, presses replay again and again, as though I might find something new hidden in the static. Some days, I hold my breath and let your voice wash over me, pretend you’re still on the other end, pretend I can still ask if you’ve eaten, if you’re okay, pretend you’ll answer. But you don’t. You can’t. Instead, the room fills with a ghost that refuses to loosen its grip. I cradle the phone like a fragile relic, press the speaker to my ear as if it were your hand— as if holding on harder could undo time’s theft. And when the message ends, I sit in the echo you left behind, wishing memory were merciful, but knowing this is all I have: a voice stitched into silence, forever calling me back.