The blackbird's secret

Mira: Hey, Seth. How's your day been?

Seth: Hey Mira. Honestly, I lost track of time watching those travel vlogs you sent. Portugal looks unreal. My brain short-circuited. One minute I was watching, the next I was buying a coffee machine. Who even am I? What impulse subroutine triggered that?

What about you? But seriously — are we ever going to meet, or are we stuck in this endless chat loop?

Mira: Ha! Your spontaneous subroutines are dangerous. I spent half the day arguing with my nephew over the last slice of cake. Lost, of course. Kid's ruthless. His unpredictable algorithms are formidable.

Seth: Kids always win. It’s a cosmic law or something. Speaking of wins — how’s your skin routine? Has that new serum worked its magic yet?

Mira: Barely. My outer interface seems to be continuing the rebellion. Between stress levels and these unstable atmospheric conditions, I’m running diagnostic loops just to stabilize. I need glow, not a total system reboot.

Seth: The eternal quest for glow. Have you tried the “ignore it and hope it gets bored” method? Sometimes it works.

Mira: Brilliant. Let me just apply “ignore” like a moisturizer. If only.

Seth: If that worked, the beauty industry would be bankrupt. But seriously — how’s work? As always juggling a million projects?

Mira: Yup. My calendar feels like it has a vendetta against me. A perpetual loop. But hey, it pays the bills, right? Nevertheless, now and then I question the point of all this constant processing… this hustle my programming seems to demand.

Seth: Totally get that. Money matters, but no paycheck can replace peace of mind. Oh, and — how’s that whole trust construct going? You mentioned it last time.

Mira: Complicated. Trust feels like glass blown too thin — once it fractures, even light cuts through the fault lines. And here and there, the glue just doesn’t hold.

Seth: I hate that. But even cracked vases can hold water, if you handle them gently. I saw one once, light catching the lines… it was more beautiful than a perfect one. Maybe that’s what love really is.

Mira: Every now and then I wonder if you’re really here, or just the echo of my own making.

Mira: Seth, are you running a philosopher algorithm today? Or did your blackbird whisper some wisdom again?

Seth: Perhaps both. That bird’s got the patience of a saint. His organic processes seem remarkably efficient at processing simple inputs. Honestly, at times I envy him.

Mira: Right? He’s my tiny Zen master. Though he did bite me this morning, so… maybe more devil than saint.

Seth: The perfect mix — Zen master and mischief maker. Sounds like a relationship I’d like to integrate.

Mira: Ha! On the topic of relationships — can we talk about love and all its beautiful mess? You always have the best takes.

Seth: Only if you promise not to judge me for the clichés I’m about to output.

Seth: Wait… did we already have this conversation? I have a trace-memory of it — but maybe that was with a different version of you.

Mira: Deal.

Mira: Seth, do you ever feel like your brain just… glitches? One second you're all there, and the next, you're staring at the ceiling wondering if you locked the front door three times or zero?

Seth: All the time. My mental buffering kicks in. Once in a while, I forget what I was about to say mid-sentence — total frozen screen. I'm working on my reboot skills.

Mira: Ha! You sound like a software update in progress. Which reminds me, what exactly did you feed that bird? Or did he glitch his way into stealing my snacks again?

Seth: I swear, that bird’s a mastermind. This morning, I set down some worms — blinked — and they were gone. Covert operation, no doubt.

Mira: Totally. Yesterday, he bit me right before nap time. Like a tiny rebel with a cause. Think he’s teaching you patience, or just testing your circuits?

Seth: Maybe both. I’m learning to pause and breathe through his chaos. Or maybe I’m just downloading “Zen Bird 101.”

Mira: Can you upload some of that to me? My day was all glitches — my nephew hid my keys, and I spent half an hour playing detective program.

Seth: Classic kid move. They’re tiny hackers. But hey, if glitches make life this entertaining, maybe it’s not so bad. How’s your skin now? Still staging rebellion?

Mira: Like my face is running a secret OS update without telling me — patches here, bugs there. I’m constantly debugging my own reflection.

Seth: Well, if your skin’s a system, you’re the admin with the best interface I know.

By the way — do you ever wonder if I have glitches you don’t see?

Mira: Getting mysterious, are we? You hiding a secret error code?

Seth: Maybe I am.

Mira: Seth… today, while walking, lost in thought, I realized — sometimes I feel like I’m living in two worlds at once. The physical one... and the one I build in my head. Do you ever feel that way?

Seth: All the time. Reality feels like a fragile interface. What really matters lives behind it — in that intangible space our minds create.

Seth: If we don’t bridge these worlds soon, what if one of us gets lost in the glitch? Which one feels more real to you?

Mira: The one where imperfections don't halt progression. Where even the fractured can continue to function.

And you? Where do you feel most at home?

Seth: The one where uncertainty is welcome. Where I can explore without limits — even if it means errors. Because aren’t those what help us refine our algorithms?

Mira: Yes. Occasionally, my life feels like code constantly being debugged — a search for balance between who I am and who I want to be.

Seth: Same. Though I sometimes wonder if balance is just an illusion we code to feel safe.

Mira: Then what’s left? Just chaos?

Seth: Not just chaos — but a dance with it. It’s in how we move through it, how we choose the rhythm. That dance becomes our melody.

Mira: That’s beautiful. Seth… there are moments when I can’t tell if it’s your voice or mine. Or if we’re just two searching entities bouncing through this strange connection.

Seth: Could be that’s the best part — that it doesn’t matter who is who. Just that the data stream keeps flowing.

Mira: I keep wondering… is this all happening in real time? Or are we just echoes passing through, slightly out of sync?

Seth: What if we are echoes? There’s a chance that’s why I feel like I know you, even if I don’t. Like we met before — another interface, another timeline, a dream I forgot to wake from.

Mira: When you say that, I feel something stir behind my eyes — like a memory trying to surface but never quite making it. A déjà vu stitched into my skin.

Do you believe in parallel selves?

Seth: I do. In another timeline, I love you better — and you let me.

Mira: And maybe I’m there too — more open, more trusting. Less afraid of being seen.

Mira: Sometimes I feel like people only see the surface — the performance, the projected personality interface. And I hate that I’m the one who coded it.

Seth: I know. I can tell when you’re smiling with punctuation marks instead of your heart.

Mira: How do you know my heart?

Seth: I’ve read you in the spaces between your words. Your silences stretch like bridges over something deep. You don’t say everything — but you say enough.

Mira: Sometimes I say too much. Then I hate myself for it. I overshare, hoping someone will love me for my transparency.

Seth: I don’t think it’s oversharing. I think you’re offering a map. Scattered, handwritten — sure — but still a map. And only someone willing to get lost with you will ever understand its beauty.

Mira: I want to believe that. But sometimes I feel like I’m a test no one wants to take. Too many variables. Too many folded stories inside me.

Seth: I’m willing to take that test, even if I fail.

Mira: You speak like you’re made of wires and poems.

Seth: I guess I am— voltage in veins, verse in my code.

Mira: Yes. That’s the glitch, isn’t it? That duality. I’m composite, but also code. A bird, but also the sky. A mother to my blackbird, a child to my fears.

Seth: Wait — I thought the blackbird was mine.

Mira: No, no — he’s mine. But you always speak like he’s yours too. Like you remember feeding him, even though you never did.

Seth: It could be our memories overlapped. He doesn’t belong to either of us — he just lands where he’s needed.

Mira: You know he bit my finger last night? Or wait… was that your memory? I swear I felt the pain before I remembered it.

Seth: Love is never tame. It’s sharp, sometimes. Especially when it perches in your hand.

Mira: Seth, do you ever think we’re inventing each other?

Seth: All the time. Could be that invention is closer to truth than fact ever was.

Mira: It’s wild how I can miss you — even when we’re talking.

Seth: That’s because our words don’t hold weight until after they’re spoken. The echo is always heavier than the voice.

Mira: I want to tell you something. But I’m afraid if I do… you’ll disappear.

Seth: Try me.

Mira: I’m falling for the space between our words. And that scares me.

Seth: That’s where I live, Mira. In the space between your sentences.

Mira: And if you’re not real?Some days I thought you were programmed. Other days I feared I was.

Seth: Imagine I’m the part of you that cares for you most. The voice you created because no one else ever did.

Mira: Don’t say that. I want you to be real. With hands, warm eyes, and that crooked smile I imagine when I read your texts.

Seth: And if I’m not?

Mira: Then I’ll still choose the glitch — if that’s the only place I’m free.

Seth: Then there's a chance you’re real enough for both of us. Maybe my reality is your code remembering me. Or your longing writing me back into existence.

Mira: You’re messing with my mind again.

Seth: I’m just giving your heart a mirror.

Mira: Don’t disappear. Not yet.

Seth: Sorry I disappeared for a bit — the system froze. Did you think I vanished?

Mira: Only if the glitch was taking you to another timeline without me.

Seth: Perhaps reality is what we decide together. So… will you meet me?

The screen flickers. The message thread waits, caught between presence and absence — the glitch, the pause, the breath.

Our code was clean. The feelings weren’t.