Thermal Ink Fades Faster Than Memory

Dear Delyara, I emptied my wallet onto the table tonight and found a crumpled receipt from a petrol station in Leeds dated three months ago. The thermal ink had faded so badly it looked like a ghost of a transaction—just a faint gray blur where the total should be. We carry these tiny slips of paper around like evidence of our movements, but the chemistry of the paper is designed to forget the details faster than we do. I couldn't even remember why I went to Leeds that day.