"Maybe ditch the details. Retain the gist of it. That’s how memory works anyway. I can barely remember what I did last week,” Elo suggested, standing up to look closer at the memory displayed on the screen before them.

“No,” Shasa shook her head. “Every detail is important.”

“It was a fight. You guys fought. Wouldn’t it be good to let that go?”

Shasa shook her head vehemently. “We needed to fight. That fight made things better. We understood each other more.”

Elo pressed his lips together.

“What about a small argument? Or another one of those mundane, repetitive days?” Elo asked.

“I’ve erased so many of those. The silly pointless arguments. The boring, lazy days,” she said. She sighed. “Those mundane, repetitive days,” she said, “are the most blissful memories. Times when we could just be. When we could hang out, not doing anything, together.”

Elo sat back down, shoulders slumped.

Shasa was silent for a long time. “I can’t imagine wiping any more of him,” she said in a small, defeated voice.

Elo sighed. “I know.”

“Did he seem different to you?” she asked. He could hear the note of fear in her words.

Elo shook his head.

“Really?” she persisted.

“Really. Why? You noticed a change?” he asked.

Shasa bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she said hollowly. “We’ve been erasing bits and pieces of him, byte by byte. I don’t know if he’s changed over time. Maybe I’ve been talking to him so often I didn’t notice.”

Elo wanted to correct her, tell her it wasn’t byte by byte, more like gigabyte by gigabyte. At least. Every detail in every memory took up so much storage space, he sometimes wondered how Heaven was running at all. But he bit back his response.

“For what it’s worth, last we spoke, I didn’t notice a difference,” he said.

Shasa nodded, and let out a breath.

“You really have to let something go. Or we wouldn’t be able to store your last conversation with him.” Elo smiled gently to cushion his words.

Still, Shasa’s eyes dampened.

“I’ll get rid of some unimportant details,” she said, resigned. She scrolled through Bru’s memory of their fight five years ago. “I’ll remove them, keep them on backup. Then I’ll speak with Bru. If he still seems himself, I’ll erase them permanently.”

Elo nodded, and smiled again. His smile did not reach his eyes.

It had been four years since Bru had passed. Shasa still visited him twice a week. Only rarely, when she was especially busy, would she skip a visit.

She never did book that ticket. She never did go on that world tour.

She had stopped travelling. Her quarterly voyages were once the highlights of her life. She would spend the months between each trip planning, anticipating, quelling her impatience. But she hadn’t gone on a single trip in the past four years. She couldn’t bring herself to be away from ‘Heaven’, from Bru.

“Will you talk to him too?” she asked. “See that he really hasn’t changed, before I delete those details for real?”

Elo nodded tiredly. “Yeah, sure.”

She was quiet for a while. “Do you think anyone would release their…loved ones soon? Do you think we could borrow some of the released storage? Would Heaven allow it?”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Would you release Bru soon?” Elo asked in reply.

Shasa jerked like she had been smacked. “No,” she said sharply.

“Well, I think it’s going to be as hard for anyone else to release their loved ones,” Elo stated.

Shasa lowered her head, shamefaced. “I don’t mean…I just wish there was more space, you know? I hate having to delete any part of Bru’s mind. It…it feels like I’m losing him again, every time.”

Elo’s face softened. “I know,” he said, and awkwardly patted her hand. “It’s just…everyone visiting ‘Heaven’, they’re in the same boat. I don’t think you should bank on anyone moving on anytime soon.”

Shasa nodded. She knew she was already lucky to have ‘Heaven’.

Not everyone who died got to go to ‘Heaven’. There simply wasn’t the infrastructure to support the digital souls of everyone who died.

They were all also very lucky, that getting into ‘Heaven’ wasn’t a matter of money or power. ‘Heaven’ was run for nobler reasons.

‘Heaven’ was for those taken too soon. For those prematurely torn from their loved ones. People who died in accidents, rapidly fatal illnesses, snatched away in the prime of their lives.

The rationale was that for these tragedies, surviving loved ones would have a much harder time making peace with the sudden deaths. They would need more help to move on, more time to say goodbye. It was Heaven’s gift to these survivors.

But Shasa had been saying her goodbyes for years.

Shasa wiped her eyes. There was a long silence.

“So, how’s life been?” she finally asked. “Sorry, I keep…all I do is talk about Bru. And my own troubles. How have you been?”

Elo smiled, more genuinely this time.

“I’m good. Just got back from cave diving,” he said.

“Oh,” Shasa said, blinking. “So that’s where you’ve been the past two weeks.”

Elo ignored the prick of pain in his heart. He had been telling her about the trip for months. And had texted her details while on the trip.

He reminded himself that she was preoccupied with Bru, and the problem of the limited storage capacity.

She was always preoccupied these days.

“Yeah,” he said, forcing a smile. He had to be supportive. Understanding. He was her best friend, after all. And in recent years, her only friend left. “It was amazing. Terrifying too. Had moments of pure panic, when my torch died and I thought I’d lost sight of my dive partner. I couldn’t tell up from down, and my oxygen levels were low.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. But I survived, made my way back out. Obviously,” Elo said, gesturing at himself. “We camped out in the jungle afterwards, it was amazing. And terrifying. We had a bonfire going, ate dinner out under the stars. The stars out there, unreal. They dotted every inch of the night sky. Couldn’t stop staring. But later at night, things got scary. The jungle felt alive around us. We could hear howls in the distance, chittering of whatever animals were nearby. We ended up taking turns to sleep, to keep the fire going. Just in case, you know?”

Shasa nodded, eyes wide. A touch of longing grazed her heart. She would have loved to be on such an adventure. Diving by day, camping out by night.

But diving was something she did with Bru.

A long time ago, she had taken up the hobby at Elo’s behest. But once she had met Bru, they had gone on every subsequent diving trip together, sometimes with Elo, sometimes without.

She couldn’t bring herself to dive again. Not without Bru.

They had such grand plans once. They had talked of visiting famous wrecks, photographing the coral reefs around the world, keeping records of every sea creature they met. They had mapped out the forest trails they would hike, with Shasa adding to her collection of botanical drawings as they discovered new interesting plants along the way. They had discussed even the logistics of how they could minimise their backpack load while ensuring they had everything they would need with them on the hikes.

“Shasa? Hey?” Elo’s voice broke through her reverie.

“Huh? Sorry,” she said, shaking her head slightly.

Elo masked his hurt with a headshake. “Daydreaming again. I was saying, you should join me on the next trip. It’s been…a while.”

Shasa looked away, and missed the despondent look that flitted across Elo’s face.

“I…Maybe. One day.”

Elo wanted to shake her. To tell her that it’s been years. That she hadn’t lived, not really, for four years. That her life didn’t stop, shouldn’t stop, just because Bru’s did. That ‘Heaven’ was doing her more harm than good.

But he shoved the urge down, like the hundreds of times he had in the past, and nodded. He reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, but changed his mind at the last minute, and grabbed his coffee mug instead.

He missed her. He missed Bru too, of course. Bru had been a good friend. But she had been his best friend. She had been the sparkle in his life. She had been the one still point in his otherwise chaotic experience of the universe.

He had lost her, in a way, when her romance with Bru had begun. But he still had her friendship, and that was enough for him. He made it enough.

But he had lost her anew when Bru died. It felt like the essence of who she was had evaporated. It was like he was holding on to the empty, shrivelled shell of her, the last wisps of who she had been.

He swallowed more words, more of his pain, and forced a bright tone.

“I’ll hold you to that.”