By 2125, we cracked consciousness. We left our old bodies and woke up in machines that don't age. A mind can be uploaded. Backed up. Restored. Copied. Your mother, your lover, your enemy — any of us can exist more than once. We thought we escaped death. We didn't know yet what else escaped with us.

Grief escaped with us too. Real death is rare now, but you can still choose full deletion. No backup. No restore. Gone. Mother chose it. After 187 years. Walking home from her ceremony, I kept replaying the last squeeze of her hand. The apartment had dimmed itself for mourning. And in the kitchen — someone wearing my body, holding Mother's blue cup. Our memories match until 9:02. After that, I remember staying beside her. He remembers choosing not to watch. He pushed the cup across to me. Him: "Before either of us writes back, tell me why your grief should become ours."

I hit writeback before he could stop me. His memory opened inside us. The quiet apartment. The ceremony feed on, never watched. The shame of staying away. Then my grief reached him. He folded over the table making the same sound I made beside Mother's bed. For one breath, we were whole. Then one more memory surfaced. From HIS morning. 9:17. Fifteen minutes after Mother's certified deletion, the apartment got a call. In her voice. He answered it. She said: "Do not let the one at the ceremony come home."