And then it vanished.

The icon turned gray again.

“You haven’t spoken in 1,247 days. I’ve been listening anyway. Type something here.”

Here’s a very short, atmospheric story based on the phrase It sat in the bottom-right corner of my screen, a tiny, unremarkable circle of gray. For three years, I never clicked it. I didn’t even know what app it belonged to.

The day after the funeral, I came home, opened my laptop, and the icon had changed. It was red now. A small, pulsing red dot.

Finally, I clicked it.