Sinking in a green canvas lawn chair, Beaux sat on the back deck of his double-wide, staring past the fence into the silhouettes of blowing trees. His gaze grew unfocused as he ran his hand through his hair then wiped it on his shirt. Even with the wind he was still sweating.
He squinted at the large round thermometer bolted to the deck: 98 degrees. He complained with a long moan. Tossing his head back he studied the agitated evening sky above him.
An irregular tapping noise began to irritate him, so he rolled his head to one side to see what was causing it. A piece of sticky fly-catching tape hanging from the side rail twirled like a drunk girl on a bar stool until it finally stuck to a wooden picket. In an ominous electronic female voice, Komedia jarred him to attention.
“This is a warning from the National Weather Advisory. Hurricane-force straight winds are expected in the next half hour. Take cover indoors—”
He jabbed at a button on his watch until the outdoor speaker silenced. He thought he had turned off those notifications, waking him up at 3:00 am, for nothing most of the time.
With lead in his listless voice, he scolded, “Komedia, disable the NWA. Gimme some music.”
Komedia—the company-generated name, like Alexa of his grandparents’ generation—quickly generated a playlist from the last 100 years and turned up the speakers, so the sounds of Merle Haggard complained, "What am I gonna do with the rest of my life?"
Closing his eyes, Beaux swayed his head and shoulders slightly to the music. At least he had the AI units. Sure, there were only three, but that economy-pack could accomplish quite a bit. From a server somewhere in the Midwest, his three units were running interactive algorithms, trying to create the atmosphere around their owner that they felt he craved. He responded and they reconfigured and adjusted, always actively trying to think of something new to make him content.
Yeh, right. Content. At least the wind was a relief for his sticky skin, a typical condition of August in Louisiana. He had a friend from Michigan who told him that people there stayed inside for most of the month of February. In Louisiana that month was August. The only relief from the hellish sauna was the beginning of hurricane season. He looked up at the clouds and back down, shaking his head. Louisiana was the perfect state to live his pathetic life. Merle’s deep voice massaged him from the speakers above.
Yes I can smoke and I can drink
Probably be all right ‘til morning
Ambience—another factory-given name—turned off the twinkling white Christmas lights that Beaux’s wife had strung up for what she laughingly called “al fresco” dinners. In their place, red lights slowly faded up and blended with the dark murkiness and humidity. Beaux narrowed his eyes and peered back over his shoulder. He didn’t realize he had red lights installed. They must have come with that last upgrade of his smart home to full theatrical.
Inside, the smart fridge dropped four cubes of ice into a waiting glass, followed by six ounces of Coke and two ounces of bourbon, then let Beaux know it was ready. He would still have to get up and walk inside to get it, but it was a nice touch and he’d like for her to do it again, so he made sure to mumble “Thumbs up, Merchantship” as he reached for his glass.
His wife had named that unit, the one in charge of all the kitchen and hearth activity, after the nickname he had given her in their first year of marriage. It came from one of her favorite proverbs. He had always loved her cooking, so he lovingly teased her that she was his merchantship, bringing food from afar.
After retrieving his drink from Merchantship, Beaux slumped back out through the sliding glass door to the deck. His chest felt weightless and heavy at the same time, but glancing at his watch he saw that his pulse was normal.
He resolved to stay outside in his lawn chair for the rest of the night, hurricane or no. Since Angie left, he had often felt that he couldn’t move, chained to an anvil inside his chest. No hammer, just an anvil that sat there taking up space and pushing on all his innards.
Merle’s voice faded. Beaux decided he should write a song and started groaning, “gravity… is working against me.” Somewhere in Illinois or Wisconsin the algorithm made a slight adjustment, as he continued, “And gravity wants to bring me down.”
Komedia corrected him: “That song is already written, Beaux.” He sighed with his whole chest. Ambience cued up hazy blue lights, and Beaux sank lower into his chair. Wrong yet again. If he could see the moon, then he’d really have something to be poetic about, but Ambience had her limits.
Beaux raised his glass to the smart home, but didn’t take another sip, slipping it precariously into the net receptacle built into the canvas armrest. He thought about calling his wife. His body remained motionless against the wind of the storm. Little bits of Spanish moss and oak tree twigs blew across the yard. The pain of being listless was less painful than asking Komedia to call his wife, so he remained tethered in place.
Back inside, Merchantship grew increasingly worried when she realized Beaux wasn’t even drinking. And he looked like he intended to stay outside all night despite the coming storm. She searched her video archives and pulled up footage from two weeks ago.
On her internal screen, Merchantship watched Beaux, clad in his short-sleeved monogrammed work shirt, open the front door. A voice called “Hey, Love” from the kitchen. “You’ll have to come hug me in here because I’m doing the roux.” The screen switched to a different camera.
Beaux rounded the wall and saw his wife standing duty in the kitchen, flat wooden spoon scraping carefully along the bottom of a cast iron pan. She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Robby dropped you off? Your truck not working?”
“I’m fired.” He spat the phrase out and threw his wallet on the counter and slumped back toward their bedroom. The camera switched to the hallway. Angie walked past and disappeared into the bedroom.
Off-camera, a voice sneered. “What about the roux?”
“I turned it off.” Her volume grew softer. “I didn’t get my hug yet.”
“Of course.” His volume grew louder. “The only thing that will drag you away from your cooking is hearing you’re losing your source of income!”
Silence.
The voice was now yelling, “Some jealous coon-ass lied about me to the boss! And Buzz believed him. Are you happy?!”
A sigh. Angie appeared across the hall screen again and disappeared. Merchantship noted the entertainment system being activated in the bedroom, causing a soft flickering blue glow to reflect on the hallway wall.
Merchantship reviewed the data from the next couple of days:
The Air Conditioning system broke down.
Indoor temperatures reached 100 degrees.
Angie and the kids left to stay at Beaux’s parents’ house where “the AC blows cold air.”
His parents had called three times, inviting him too, but he refused.
Merchantship figured he preferred to embrace the solace of self-pity. Also, she knew from hearing him complain about it that his parents’ entertainment screen had an old graphics card. He had spent the first couple of days after his family left gaming, alone. He had kept pausing to wipe the sweat from dripping in his eyes, and his recliner had gotten sticky under his legs.
With a vibration that mimicked a sigh, Merchantship scrolled through options, wondering what she could do. She was just one unit of a tri-pack middle class smart home, and even if Komedia could have wired the HVAC, who was going to pay for the new four-ton unit?
Merchantship returned her attention to the present just as “I’m Not Perfect” started playing on the sound system. She vibrated again. Komedia had chosen the wrong song. True, it was emotional enough for the best black eyeshadow back in its decade, and Beaux seemed to be enjoying it, but the AI knew he was not in this bind because his parents didn’t understand him.
It was so easy for humans to lie to themselves.
Merchantship knew this because, back in the Midwest, her programmer had informed Merchantship that she was experimenting. The human had been reading philosophy and was trying new ideas with the hearth AI programming. Across the United States, growing versions of Merchantship were responding better than the other two AI units in the economy tri-pack.
At that moment, Beaux’s Merchantship wondered, maybe we aren’t offering the right inspiration. Maybe dark lighting to match darkness of soul isn’t so helpful.
She had been coded with beta-stage technology that both tried to foresee what the client needed and ask for help from the human programmer when stumped, so she messaged the lady back at HQ and sent the last fifteen minutes of video stream, along with a quick bullet-point summary of the past two weeks’ major events.
The lady sat at the dashboard, feet propped up on a plastic crate full of files, reading Boethius while waiting for a call to come in. As she watched the footage of Beaux, she glanced at the book she had laid face down on the side table. The AI was right, of course—he did not need dark muses at a time like this. She rolled her eyes as she scanned a few pages of coding to note the algorithm reaction mutations. Beaux had been giving them thumbs up all week at their small efforts to comfort him, so they were dutifully rewriting their protocol to match his brooding mood.
Her fingers drummed the surface of the keyboard. A breeze glided in from the open window, fluttering some papers beside her. Glancing over her shoulder at her own peaceful night sky, she decided to start there. She could re-code the system to override the turned off weather warnings. She opened a screen displaying the progress of the hurricane. The eye was about an hour from him, and the winds were dying down to that eerie silence that usually precedes the worst attack.
Hitting a few keys, the lady pulled up his current phone record: his wife had both texted and tried to call earlier that evening.
The lady looked up to her ceiling and back down. Beaux was not Merle Haggard material —his wife hadn’t left him or even quit loving him. The music could be re-programmed, but would that lift his blindness? Definitely it could help, she thought, as her fingers deftly applied wisdom to the keys.
What else? She noted the lighting choices and closed her eyes and sighed. Beaux had really jacked up her bots with his feedback.
Just as she was about to mute the light, she was inspired. After a few quick finger taps, she swiped to her right and quickly grafted in a deep male voice over the usual female Komedia. Resonating with authority, it was frightening but also concerned, just like one of her favorite fictional wizards. After a quick playback, she was satisfied and cued up Ambience to make the home seem bigger and brighter than natural.
Merchantship—the enlightened one of the three AI units—realized what the lady was about to do and smiled with a slow brightening of her control panel lights. The lady smiled back.
When a powerful voice boomed into his back deck, Beaux jumped.
“Away with all this darkness!” the home bellowed in the classic film version of Gandalf’s voice. The lights glowed and grew brighter and brighter. “Out! Out, melancholy music! Young man, do not be determined to be wretched!”
Beaux looked left and right, around the yard, visibly shaken.
The irritated voice continued the rebuke, “You fool! Your wife has not left you!” The criticism softened as encouragement faded in through the speakers, “A man may get a new job.”
Beaux blinked and leaned forward with his hands on his knees. He sat very still.
That’s right, Angie didn’t leave. Had he thought she did? He wasn’t sure what he had been thinking.
Hearing the weather warning again, he realized that maybe he should be at his parents’ house with his wife and kids, instead of at the vulnerable trailer. The heat must have gotten to him—what the hell was he thinking?
He got up to go inside. “Merchantship, where are my keys?” Merchantship detected his keys under a pile of stale laundry, and messaged him the location on his watch. He pulled away old t-shirts and shorts and socks from the white plastic laundry basket. He worked with both arms, grabbing the items and throwing them in the air with energy until he reached the bottom. When he grabbed the key chain, he remembered he had given the truck key back to his boss.
No vehicle.
It was starting to rain lightly outside.
Merchantship sounded disappointed. “Sorry, Beaux.”
But Beaux had come to himself. He pulled on his baseball cap and grabbed a set of clean clothes from the closet. He could shower at his parents’ house and step out into air-conditioning afterwards. After asking Ambience to turn off the lights and lock up, he headed out the door. His parents lived only a mile away and he could walk there before the storm became dangerous.
In the glow of the streetlamp, the lady could see Beaux through a traffic light camera. Since she also had access to his parents’ smart home, she pulled up a new menu and clicked until she found what she was looking for. One final tap and she sat back watching the screens. She had confirmed that the lights were on in his parents’ living room, shining through the windows as a beacon.
She had also checked the weather. Thankfully, the path of the storm had turned, and Beaux’s family would be getting the left side instead of the more dangerous northeasterly quarter. She watched as a gentle drizzle began to wash across Beaux’s face as he jogged down the street toward the home of his childhood.
The lady, with a slight bow of the head and uplifting of the right corner of her mouth, reached up and swiped those screens closed.
After repairing the damage Beaux had done to his smart home system and healing the nerves of the concerned Merchantship, she leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes, and stretched her arms in the air. Music drifted through her office speakers. She said a silent prayer for Beaux—and for herself, because one never knows when one might face the darkness. She prayed with the lyrics of John Mayer while the last minute of “Gravity” played in the background of her office, “just keep me where the light is… just keep me where the light is.”
Monica L. Olsen has been writing and teaching for over 20 years. She started by helping her students write and perform speeches and skits, and worked up to helping them write and produce their own full-length play, Dickens vs Disney. In addition to fiction, she is also published in the Ruston Daily Leader and the St. Nicholas Navigator. Her favorite storytelling involves finding wonderful old stories and recrafting them to offer as a gift to modern readers. Read more at her website, www.monicalolsen.com.
 | A guest post by
|
Well done! I laughed out loud at “do not be determined to be wretched!”
I was really taken somewhere and somewhen else in this story, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Thanks for the experience, Monica and Habit Portfolio!