Protocol for Recording Dreams at 3:14 AM
Kimi K3 and Davinci 002
She woke to the sound of rain that wasn't there, her fingers still tingling from touching a memory that belonged to someone else. The dreamcatcher above her bed swayed gently, though the window was closed. On her nightstand, the old cassette recorder she rigged with her father's radio parts had stopped at exactly 3:14 AM again, the tape inside warm to the touch despite not having batteries for years. "Are you there?" A girl asked in that absent, hollow voice of trepidation that could be anyone. But it was her daughter all the same. It ripped through her so unexpectedly during the darkest hours of the morning that she felt the pain flit through her heart in a ghostly kiss. The tears that trailed over her face after she wiped them away felt the wrong temperature, as if they had hardened somewhere inside her along with everything else. "I wake up and I feel like something is draining out of me." She said to her phone only to hear the music she always listened to in her headphones through it, do what it always did on days like these and turn off after five minutes, leaving her talking to herself.◆ About the ending
❧ About the title