July Hybrid Contest: Silver Winner: “Acer” by Khoi Pham

Do you still remember my old Acer? 
It was the first computer I bought with my own money after leaving my hometown.
When it broke beyond repair a few years ago, I had to store it in our attic.
I’d forgotten it was there until this year’s spring, when I ran a recovery tool on the old drive.  

And, among a jumble of age-old photos, browser entries, never-finished documents, and random downloads of all sorts, I found you—no, I re-found you. 

You look younger, a lot younger, in those photos than you did the last time I saw you. I remember the scent of your hair, the powdery fragrance on your cheeks, the way you ground your teeth while sleeping, the smoke-laced kisses we shared after our dinners at Seline’s. 
I remember the way you threw things at me whenever we fought. I remember your cries and your hiccups on cold winter nights, the cold steel and the blood running down your skin like scarlet petals on fresh snow. 

That was when we were still living in our old flat, on the first floor of a townhouse in the suburbs, with a window overlooking a sun-deprived courtyard. It must have just turned winter, the world outside a blur of white. 
I still keep photos of that place.

I also found the old songs again. 
Our songs. 
I remember, in that shabby room, our room, your voice was hoarse, dry, like hot sand lining the dry bed of a river on a parched summer day. 
The lyrics made me wonder what we must have felt back then to be so taken with those songs. 
Just like the half-finished files you and I wrote.
They were weird and raw; they brought back the spicy aroma of Camel smoke, the bitter taste of black coffee on sleepless nights, and the metallic taste of despair.

I’m sure I’ll never be able to write anything like that again.  

I wonder where you are now. 
Have you settled down in a faraway town with the one who loved you—if you ever learned to be loved? Have you lived a fulfilling, ordinary, mundane life, the life you once detested?
Or are you still chasing that dream like a flea wanting to leap to the moon? 
Or maybe, just maybe, you’ve drowned yourself in some godforsaken river where no one would find you, just as you once told me you would?  

I guess it doesn’t matter.  
I don’t think I will ever find you, ever, even if I want to find you. 

But here in this tiny space of my Acer, where the sun still shines, emotions are still fresh and dreams are still warm—would you like to sit with me so we can share another steaming cup of coffee and listen to the song you love?

Khoi Pham is a Vietnam-born and now Germany-based computer forensics analyst. Though he does not work in the field of literature, he enjoys reading and writing as ways to reflect on memories, losses, and the struggles of modern life. Having previously written only on his personal blog, this is one of his first attempts to have his work published in English.