Three weeks later, he got a message. “That’s my mother,” it read. “And my father was the one filming. He died before he could ever finish the edit. We thought all the footage was lost when their house flooded in '05.”

"Yeah, I think so," a man’s voice answered from behind the lens. "I can't tell if the red light is on."

"If this works," she said, "we’re going to be legends. Or at least, the best pie-makers in the county." The video cut to black. It was only twelve seconds long.

The woman turned around, holding a flour-dusted rolling pin like a scepter. She laughed—a bright, infectious sound—and for a moment, she looked directly into the camera, directly at Elias.

Elias realized that "video1 (4).mp4" wasn't just a junk file. It was the only surviving evidence of a perfect afternoon. He sent the file to the stranger, watched the "Copying..." progress bar hit 100%, and finally hit "Delete" on his own machine.

Elias checked the file properties. The date modified was years before he had even bought this computer. He had no memory of the woman, the man, or the kitchen. He had inherited the hard drive from a refurbished electronics shop three towns over.

He played it again. And again. He became obsessed with the twelve seconds of someone else's "legendary" moment. Who were they? Did they ever bake the pie? Why was this the fourth version of the video?