Arcadia Burns

ROSA
SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC the silence woke her.
She was hunched in her seat, knees drawn up, her back feeling bent and twisted after a cramped five hours on the plane. The windows were dark, and most of the passengers were asleep under gray blankets.
No voices, no sounds. It took her a moment to figure out why.
Her earphones were silent.
She glanced at her iPod display. All gone, several weeks’ worth of music deleted, just like that. There was only a single genre left, a single musician, a single song. One she’d never heard before, and certainly hadn’t downloaded herself. She clicked through the menu once again.
Others.
Scott Walker.
My Death.
That was it. Everything else had vanished.
She supposed the emptiness suited the beginning of her new life.
She leaned back, closed her eyes, and listened to “My Death” on an endless loop for the next three hours, until the plane landed in Rome.