So now I archive in WAV, but late at night, I still listen to the ghost MP3— just to hear what betrayal sounds like when it’s afraid to be heard.

My hi-hats learned to stutter. The kick drum, once a fist, now a moth dissolving in a ghost’s breath.

VBR cheats. It trades transients for megabytes, slices the reverb tail off a cello’s goodbye, pools the artifacts into a shallow lake where frequencies drown quietly.