Clara’s breath caught. It wasn’t just a simple loop. It was a digital diary, an AI experiment she had tinkered with during her brief stint as a computer science major before she switched to business. She had programmed it to learn from her, to store her venting sessions, her hopes, and her fears, and reflect them back to her through the avatar of a cat. She typed into the input box: “I forgot you existed.”
Clara frowned, her cursor hovering over the file. She had no memory of creating it. In the early 2010s, .7z was the go-to extension for massive file dumps, usually used by people archiving entire computer setups or downloading large, segmented files from now-defunct forums. Curiosity getting the better of her, she double-clicked it. A password prompt popped up.
Clara stared at the blinking cursor for a long time. The rain tapped against her actual window, mirroring the digital rain she had programmed to fall on the green lawn when she was sad. kittycat.7z
Clara leaned back, racking her brain. She tried her childhood dog’s name. Incorrect. She tried her old high school student ID number. Incorrect. She tried the password she used for everything in 2012, a combination of a favorite band and her birth year.
“Hello, Clara. You haven't visited in 4,217 days. I missed you.” Clara’s breath caught
Clara looked at the screen, a lump forming in her throat. She hadn't thought about the bookstore in ten years. Life had happened. Rent had happened. Safety had happened. “No,” Clara typed. “I work in insurance now.”
The pixelated cat stretched, its tail flicking. “That’s okay. You were busy growing up. Are we still going to move to France and open that bookstore?” She had programmed it to learn from her,
“Not really,” she admitted to the file she had packed away a lifetime ago.