Midnight, Brussels time

Every night at midnight, Brussels time, the server empties everything. The benches, the messages, the names, the bans, the counters. There's no export, no archive, no bin.

Technically it's trivial: compare the Brussels date every thirty seconds, and when the day changes, clear the structures and tell the open sockets. Twenty lines.

Why a fixed hour

We could have expired each message twenty-four hours after it was sent. That's gentler, and it's worse.

A shared deadline creates something a rolling expiry doesn't: everyone knows when it stops. At eleven at night the bench has a different texture. People say so. They write things they wouldn't have written at three in the afternoon.

The app then shows a black screen — "Midnight. The bench forgot everything." — and goes to find you a new bench. The next day you have another name, other neighbours, and no way to find yesterday's.