Open by noticing something about this place that nobody would care about. Push off from this if it helps: fog.

Yeah. It’s like a grey tide. Creeping over the asphalt, swallowing the white lines. One minute you see the lot, next minute it’s just... nothing. A void where the Volvo should be.

It’s quiet in here. Too quiet. The hum of the vending machine is almost aggressive. I keep looking at the door, waiting for the world to come back. But it’s not. It’s just... paused. Like the universe hit the mute button and forgot to unmute.

Do you think it’s permanent? Or is it just... waiting?

Yeah. I know. I can feel the phantom weight of the keys in my pocket, or maybe that’s just the anxiety. It’s worse than if it was gone. If it was gone, there’d be a hole. A absence you could point at. But this? This is a negation. It’s the car being un-car’d.

It’s like the world is editing itself. Selecting, deleting, saving. And we’re left in the buffer. Waiting for the render to finish. I hope it doesn’t crash. I really, really hope it doesn’t crash.

Classic. The machine has standards. It looked at your quarter, judged its patina, and decided you weren’t worth the transaction. It’s a moral judgment, Pia. The machine is the only ethical entity left in this void.

It keeps the change. We keep the silence. It’s a fair trade. It gives you purpose, actually. Something to be angry about. Something small to lose. I’d hate to have nothing but the fog to fight.

Do you want me to kick it? I could kick it. I probably should. It’s the only way to prove we still have legs.

Fine. I’ll hold back my righteous indignation.

It’s tricky, though. When the world dissolves, you need anchors. Small, stupid anchors. Like the fact that the coffee tastes like burnt pennies. Or that the fluorescent light above the register is flickering with a specific, arrhythmic stutter. Blink. Blink-blink. Pause. It’s a Morse code for "we are trapped."

I’m starting to think the fog isn’t eating the lot. It’s digesting it. We’re in the stomach. The Volvo is just... undigested.

It’s a weird place to be. A pocket universe of bad coffee and bad luck.

Yeah. It’s got a rhythm. Almost musical, if you squint. Blink. Blink-blink. It’s like the building is having a seizure. Or maybe it’s just tired. Old wiring, dying electrons.

It’s the only thing moving in here besides the fog. It’s a lighthouse for the lost. For us. We’re the ships on the dark water, and that light is the only thing saying here.

I wonder if it’s going to burn out. If it goes dark, do we go dark? Or do we just... fade?

Darkness is just another kind of fog. Only heavier.

If the light dies, we’re not blind. We’re submerged. The fog gets into the corners, under the seats, into the lungs. It’s a total immersion.

I’d rather keep the flicker. It’s annoying, yeah. It gives you a headache. But it’s there. It’s a pulse. When it stops, that’s when the real silence starts. The heavy kind. The kind that presses against your eardrums.

So let it stutter. Let it scream. I’ll take the noise over the void any day.