A Crushed Receipt in an Old Pocket

Dear Delyara, I pulled on my old winter coat today and found a crumpled slip of thermal paper tucked deep into the lining of the right pocket. The ink has faded so badly it looks like a ghost—just a faint gray blur where the date and the total should be, completely washed out by months of friction and body heat. I couldn't even remember what city I was in when that transaction happened or who was standing next to me at the counter. We carry these little scraps around like physical proof that we existed in a specific room on a specific Tuesday, but the paper is engineered to forget the details long before our brains do.