It’s only a few seconds long.
Just a clip.
You didn’t mean to save it.
It wasn’t even a special moment—just them laughing at something silly.
Something ordinary.

But you kept it.
Buried in a folder on your phone.
You told yourself it was for the memories.
For the days when you’d want to remember the way they lit up a room.

And at first, it helped.
You’d play it when it got too quiet.
When the silence felt too big, too still.
When grief sat next to you like a stranger you didn’t know how to talk to.

Their laugh cut through the quiet like sunlight.
For a while, it made you feel like they were still here.
Still reachable.
Still yours.

But over time, something changed.

Now that sound doesn’t make you smile.
Now it guts you.
Because it’s too alive.
Too full of what’s gone.
Too pure to belong to this world anymore.

You play it when the silence grows teeth—
when the quiet turns cruel and starts whispering things you can’t shut out.
You hit play like it’s a prayer.
But instead of peace,
you feel your chest crack open.

Because that laugh belongs to a body that’s not here.
To a child you can’t hold.
To a world that ended mid-sentence.

And still—
you can’t delete it.
You don’t even let your battery die anymore,
just in case.

Because that sound is all you have left
that feels like them.
Not their things.
Not their photos.
Just that laugh.
Raw.
Real.
Unrepeatable.

You hit play again.
And it breaks you, again.

But you can’t stop.
Because even if it hurts—
you’d rather break than forget.

Their laugh lives in your phone.
And now it echoes through the hollows they left behind.