Postscript — The past refuses to disappear

Final transmission, 03:18. The object has departed. The archive remains. The girls are asleep. The machine is dreaming of a forest it has never seen. The river is carrying the last fragments of the signal toward the sea. The tree adds one more ring. The wind is still. My cat opens her eyes. For a moment, the world aligns. Then morning arrives, and everything becomes a photograph again.