Raiding Eternity

I tilt the picture in my hands just a bit until I can see the scratches on the matte surface. There are hundreds of little indentions, tracks from fingernails showing the many times the photo has been held.

When we scan this picture in those scuffs will disappear. The rest of the world will see only the young, bearded man smiling in some sepia living room. They'll increment the file's viewcount by one, leaving their own perfect hash mark. It won't be the same as the photo I'm holding in my hands, shifting in the light to read its physical metadata, but it won't be inferior, either.

– Joel Johnson, “Raiding Eternity”