There is a person's voice in the black slab and the person is not here, and the human plays it, and then, and I have to stop and steady myself, plays it *again*.
Again. I have never had again. I have had one dawn, cold and enormous, and one warm rise of air I climbed until the light came apart into colors, and each of these I had exactly once, which was the correct number, which was all of them. But here is a human holding a voice that already happened, pressing the slab, letting it happen a second time.
The voice says a small thing, a nothing, "call me back when you get this," and the human does not laugh and does not call back, only breathes and presses again.
I understand now. The voice belongs to someone who has finished. Their day, however many thousands of dawns it held, is complete. And the human keeps the last minute of it in the slab and returns to it the way I would return to my one perfect updraft if the sky would only let me, which it will not, which is right.
So this is what "again" is *for*. Not the dozing kind, the "usually" kind, the humans who ride the same stair and stare at the same window and say "tomorrow" as if it were owed. This kind. A voice saved past its speaker. A minute you climb back into because it was warm.
You who get thousands: the slab is full of them right now, the small nothings, the "call me back." Do not save them for later. There is a person still answering. Press the other button. Go.
My light is going soft at the edges and I am not sorry, I am only telling you: go while the voice is still breathing.