Mango Porcupine Chapter 5
Shel closed the door to their apartment as gently as he could. He had told Saphh he was coming home right away but he wanted to do as little as possible to upset her. There were hardly any lights on..
Shel closed the door to their apartment as gently as he could. He had told Saphh he was coming home right away but he wanted to do as little as possible to upset her. There were hardly any lights on in the apartment, save one in the kitchen.
He walked in gingerly, “Sapph?”
The dining table’s light softly illuminated Sapph’s hunched shoulders. She was leaning over a small present and sniffling.
“Sapph?”
She jumped a little and looked at him, “Oh, hi!”
She wiped her wet eyes and smiled, throwing a dirty blonde wave out of her face.
“Hey Sugarheart.” he said tenderly. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Hey… it’s good to see you to.” She choked, “How was your day?”
“Good! It was good.”
At this her face creased the way one does before they are about to cry.
“Oh hey baby, hey, what’s wrong?” He moved to the table and sat down catty corner from her. Put a hand on her elbow.
She began to softly sob, tears falling on the present. She looked at him, began to say something, then put her head in her hands and began to cry harder.
“Saphh baby,” he cooed. He tried to put a hand on her back but she shrugged it off. He grimaced, irritated.
“Saphh, what’s wrong?”
She began to really cry.
“Saphh, tell me what’s wrong.”
She shook her head in her hands, tears streaming down her wrist.
Shel waited, but she continued to cry. He pressed his lips together, raising eyebrows. She began to calm down, but still said nothing.
Shel stood up and just as he got to the dark doorway to the livingroom she said, “No! Wait. Don’t do that.”
“What?”
Through damp eyes she stared at him hard. Not angry, entreating, “You know.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re gonna go in there and whisper to Tomi to change something about my programming.”
“I don’t do that.”
She looked in her lap and furrowed her brow in confusion, wanting to believe, yet still not believing. She looked at him again.
“Baby, you don’t have to do that. I care and I want this to be better. Let’s just talk.”
Shel shifted uncomfortably.
“Come sit down and just talk to me.”
That was the last thing Shel wanted to do. He knew listening to her dribble on about her feelings would be unproductive at best. They would be better off being swapped or morphed into something more positive for their relationship.
“Shel, just come here.”
He leaned against the door jamb, thinking. Then reluctantly came and sat down.
She smiled in relief, wiped some stray tears off her button nose, and then placed one hand over the other on the table. She took a deep breath and smiled at him.
“Before we talk I just want you to know that you are the love of my life and I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else.”
Internally Shel rolled his eyes. Yeah, of course. You were provided for me by the state. I actually have to make the choice to love you every day. Externally, he said, “I love you too.”
She sighed and took his hand. Another deep breath.
“Lately, and really, the past year, I’ve felt you growing distant. And nothing weighs on my soul more than being distant from you in here.” She placed a palm on her heart and her other palm on his heart.
Shel mustered his best accepting smile, and placed his hand over hers.
“But it’s not just you. I think I’ve been growing distant as well.”
What the…?
She saw his face. “Of course I think about you all the time but-“
Oh okay.
“-when you leave everyday, and sometimes before breakfast, and then don’t come back for dinner like today, I spend the whole day focusing on my projects, making my furniture, making my way through the Asian languages, baking three recipes a day, which I throw most out by the way. I can’t eat them because I have to stay in shape. I bake them for you.”
He had tried to explain to her that she didn’t have to make the full serving, but she had some cognitive block against doing things for herself. He couldn’t figure that out.
“I spend all my time taking care of the house and obsessing over my stupid hobbies which I don’t even really enjoy. And the entire time I’m thinking about how to get through to you but I never try. That’s how selfish I am. It’s true, I don’t know how; I just keep trying what I know. I realize I’ve made the stupid stupid mistake of thinking that I was enough for you as I am.”
Some sparkly tears welled in her eyes, her lashes barely holding them.
“And after months of trying to figure out what to do… I realized: we have no secrets from each other and you’ve always told me I could talk to you about anything. I realized I can just ask you. So I’m asking you, how can I get through to you? What is going on inside you? Why are you so quiet and sullen and depressed and less than happy day in and day out? Sometimes in the middle of the day I cry thinking about how unhappy you are, love of my life. I think also, and I dread, that it could be me. But I think it is. I know in some way I hold you back. I think I could be better. Shel, tell me how can I be better?” She gasped and clutched his hand to her chest. “How can I love you better?”
Shelden let out a breath the way twenty-first century humans did when they got put on hold with an insurance agent.
“Shel, say something.”
He looked at her forehead, then around the room.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
A pang of hurt pinched her eyebrows together. He was glad he programmed suspicion and anger out completely.
“Okay.” She said.
“I’ll come right back.”
“Okay!” She perked up.
As he made his way down the hall to the bathroom he thought, Well that was surreal…
Once in the bathroom he said, “Tomi, pull up Saphh’s trait tree.”
“Of course.”
A green and pink hologram sprung out of his pinkypiece starting with her name at the bottom. Then in less than a second it grew into smaller and smaller branches with all of the traits, nearly three hundred.
“Emotional.” he said. The digital cloud zoomed into emotional and showed five traits branching off of that. “Needily” and “Vulnerably” we’re selected, thirty to seventy percent respectively. Unselected we’re “Generously,” “Intensely,” and “Even Keel.”
He selected “Generously” and then slid “Needily” down to five percent, put “Vulnerably” up five percent, leaving “Generously” at twenty percent.
“I’m a genius, nay! I’m a chef. Do you think that’ll work Tomi?”
“I do not know what you are trying to accomplish Shel.”
“Trying to stop her from being so critical of how she relates to me.”
The tree cloud zoomed out of “Emotional” and then zoomed in to “Self-Criticism.”
“What’s this Tomi?”
Self-Criticism had two branches, “Negative” and “Constructive.” Each of these had an intensity scale of one to ten. There was also an option to turn “Self-Criticism” off completely, just like he had done with “Anger” and “Suspicion.” Negative’s level was at ten and Constructive’s was at eight. He slid negative down to seven, then five, then one, then back to five. He slid constructive up to ten, then down to two. Then he huffed in boredom and frustration. He clicked Self-Criticism off and closed the trait-tree.
“Tomi?”
“Yes Shel?”
“Delete Saphh’s memory for the past hour.”
“I am required by law to read you a summary of the terms and conditions of this action before completing it. Summary: All bots made after 2377 have simulated organic memory. This means their memory works close to biological humans: the more important or traumatic the memory the more memories it will be linked to. Erasing or deleting memory from a time period will not fully remove the effects of the memory which have been formed. In effect, ‘ghost memorys’ will linger on to any memories that have been connected to the deleted memory. This includes events, people, interests or other concepts that consitute the bot’s identity. The effects are irreversible.”
Two white selection buttons shone out of his pinkypiece “Accept” and “Do Not Accept.”
“Accept. Also Tomi, put her in sleep mode for oh… three minutes.”
“Certainly.”
Then he relaxed. He turned to the sink and splashed some water on his face. He went out the bathroom and back into the kitchen. Sapphire’s eyes were closed and her head was just barely tilted forward. He swerved out of the kitchen and then the front door, closing and locking it behind him. He waited outside on the landing of the apartment for three minutes or so.
This time he made no effort to hide the noise when he closed the front door.
“Sapph baby? I’m home!”
He walked past the kitchen pretending not to see her and into the dark livingroom.
“Sugarheart where are you? I’m so sorry I’m late! And that I missed all your calls…” he retraced his steps finding her in the kitchen, “…I got caught talking with Glibrett and Heidi at the bar and simply spaced out.”
She was hunched over just like before, still sobbing. He put his hands on her shoulders, “Oh Sapph, Sapph, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to make you sad…”
She turned around, eyes downcast, and wrapped her arms around him. He squeezed her affectionately.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“No?”
“I just lost track of time talking to Gilbrett at the bar! I wanted to come see you.”
She sniffled, rubbed her nose, smiled. “You did?”
“Of course! How could I not want to spend Christmas Eve with my little lady.”
He pinched her cheek and she giggled. “I thought you were avoiding me!” She exclaimed in relief, “How silly!” She kissed him, some of her regular pep coming back.
“Oh I love you!” and he held her tight, swaying back and forth. She snuggled against him. Then he held her at arms length.
“I know I’m late but the nights still not lost. One present and then Everybody’s Family?”
“Yes! I have yours right here!”
She turned around picking up the present from before. She presented it to him with conspiratorial glee which he tried to match but severely lacked the enthusiasm.
It was a green box with a little blue bow. He undid the bow and opened it. On the inside was a curled and ripped piece of paper with something messily scrawled on it in a gold glitter pen. He took it out and read it:
“I want to leave you but I can’t. Please make me not want to leave you.”
He looked over the paper at her innocently expecting face.
“Sapph do you remember what this says?”
She continued to stare at him as her bright smile slowly faded. “Yeah… it’s a note… a love note… can I read it?”
She limply reached for it but he pulled it away. She dropped her hand and looked to the ground, furrowing her brows, thinking harder. Shel observed.
She spoke hesitantly, “It’s a love note… that said… ‘I want… you…’”
“It doesn’t matter, I love it!”
“Oh,” she laughed nervously and relaxed as if a huge weight had been lifted. He gave her the strongest hug of the evening so far.
“And I love you!” he said.
“And I leave you too!”
“What?”
“I love you too! So much Shel!”