By Ash Jurberg
Publication Date: 2026-04-12 09:45:00
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My t-shirt was already sticking to me like I had entered a wet t-shirt contest when I spotted him across the street. I flew 35 hours to be here, playing Frogger in San Salvador traffic, dodging motorcycles, and already opening my arms for a hug I’d been planning for years. Joe stepped off the curb with a big smile, and for a second I just stood there, jet-lagged and slightly delirious. Two colleagues finally meet.
However, we had never worked in the same country. Or even the same hemisphere. Or for the same company. I am Australian. Joe is Salvadoran. We are writers who met online in a writing community that I spent years building. Then came AI. Every warning was about my income. Nobody mentioned that it was coming for my friends too.
Six years earlier, I was hunched over a laptop in Melbourne, writing my way to a new career…
