Storage

By Gabriele Micozzi

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The bird’s last cry was not stored as sound.
Sound was inefficient.

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It entered the archive as absence,
a null checksum, a failed inheritance,

the kind of error a machine can carry

without grief and therefore forever.

 

Every night at 02:14
the server wakes the missing file

and asks it to be complete.

 

The disk answers with a scratch.

Not a voice.
Not even an imitation of one.

Just the small metallic patience

of a head searching the surface
where song should have had weight.

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In the species database
the final vocal trace is a red dot

beside a Latin name for passenger

pigeon no mouth will need again.

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The dashboard does not say it sang.

Dashboards are kind in that way.
They remove the verbs
that might accuse the living.

It says:
data temporarily unavailable.

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A technician in another city

marks the incident resolved.

He has three children,
a plant he forgets to water,

and a password that contains

the name of a dog long dead.

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He has never heard the bird.

This helps him be precise.

The archive preserves the error code.

It preserves the timestamp.
It preserves the permission trail,

the failed query,
the automated apology.

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It restores everything
except the throat.