Dism <HD – 8K>

There was a long pause. She could hear him breathing on the other end, slow and steady. Then he said, “Do you know why I started collecting dism?”

“How?” she whispered.

They sat on the floor of the poetry aisle, backs against the self-help books, and compared lists. His was longer—of course it was, he had three decades on her—but the entries were the same species. The last slice of bread, moldy. The sound of a train horn at 3 a.m. The way a conversation dies even when no one wants it to. The moment you realize you’ve outgrown a friend. The second sock, forever missing. There was a long pause