Yesterday was December 11.

Yesterday, I spoke with a friend. Whenever I talk to them, there’s a quiet tension inside me. Not because of their tone of voice, but because their voice is being recorded.

They constantly record sound in whatever space they’re in. Not only phone calls the room, the table, everyday life… As if every place they inhabit is also an archive.

Something happened to them in the past. After that, sound stopped being just vibration. It became evidence.

The moment I remember this, the conversation changes. My words grow heavier. My sentences file themselves down without effort. For a moment, it feels like I’m not speaking to the person in front of me, but to some unknown ear that will listen later.

On one hand, I try to understand them. Trauma disrupts the way a person relates to time. The past leaks into the future. A person wants to protect themselves. And when memory no longer feels reliable, they begin to record.

But another question keeps circling inside me: If a space is being recorded, does the “present” still exist there? Or does everything turn into the past even as it’s being lived?

The hardest part is this: I want to ask them these questions. I really do. But I can’t.

Because asking “why” is sometimes not curiosity, but an uninvited entry. And for some people, “why” doesn’t unlock anything it tightens the lock.

So I stay quiet. I speak carefully, and I listen from a distance. Maybe this is how trust is built in the modern world now: One person records everything, while the other slowly withdraws.

Yesterday, I realized something: People used to fear being forgotten. Now they fear being recorded.