a life time of tears

The flickering cursor on my screen was the only constant; my life, a developer' s dream turned broke reality, spiraled with every line of code that built debt instead of worlds. My wife, Chloe, a sharp, cold woman, shared my last name but not my life, her presence in our sterile home a constant reminder of everything we' d lost.

Then, a black box popped up on my monitor, a simple command prompt with a blinking green line: "Cosmic Stream Initialized. Observing Universe C-782." It showed a live feed, grainy and unstable, of a college dorm room, and in it was Chloe, ten years younger, radiating an idealism I hadn' t seen since our own college days.

My fingers trembled. Was this a hack? A cruel prank? I typed a desperate message, witnessing her jump, then her young voice calling out from my speakers, "Who's there? Is this a prank?" Overwhelmed, I learned I could see and talk to her, across a decade of time.