by Michael Martone
They broke up then on leap day over email, sending ever-shorter messages back and forth by hitting the reply button until the final word “stop” was the final word.
They left the subject field blank except for the abbreviation for reason, re:, which multiplied with each reply to one another so, at last, the space read: re:re:re:re; etc.
Each of them, miles, apart paused a moment to read again what each had written on the screen, their fingers poised about to send the other this next leap.
Four years later, all the reasons for doing what they did are lost to them, the email program purged, but this extra day returns to both a surplus sadness.
published by the University of Pittsburgh