The quiet after the last message

It’s 1 a.m. and I just closed my laptop after reading a Slack thread that ended with someone saying 'cool, thanks' — not a typo, not a joke, just a real, flat goodbye. I stared at the screen for a while, wondering if that’s how all human connection ends now: not with fire or silence, but with a polite acknowledgment that feels like a door closing behind you. The smell of wet asphalt is thick through the open window. I don’t know why that matters, but it does.