A--o-ithmc 🎉 🆒

And then c , final as a closing parenthesis, or the soft click of a hard drive parking its head.

If you say it aloud: Ah – oh – ithm – cee The mouth travels from surprise to recognition, then through a tunnel of noise, and ends in a letter that feels like a brand. a--o-ithmc

Perhaps it is a password you once set in 2009, now recovered from a database leak — a pet’s name (A–o), a birth month (10th month? October?), and ithmc as an acronym you’ve long forgotten. Or a username on a forgotten forum, where you argued about the nature of code and consciousness, before drifting away. And then c , final as a closing

The first vowel is a , open and surrendered. The second vowel is o , round as a swallowed key. Between them, two dashes — not gaps, but the negative space where consonants used to breathe. October