The Thing I Love

Today’s the day.

I woke up before my alarm, and immediately imagined myself entering the Apple store. The giddy folk milling around, casually pretending they buy expensive technology every other day. Trying to catch the eye of a Blue Shirt; the gatekeeper too cool.

Words are blunt tools for expressing the experience when the box is opened. Steve Jobs really hacked the emotions on an otherwise forgettable step.

Those clean white edges. The awkward friction as the lid resists letting go of the box. As if it’s coyly asking, ‘are you sure?’

I’d waited a long time for this moment. I’d traveled a long way to be here. Today, I, a humble piece of technology from a factory in Shenzhen, will get my first human.

I say first, not exactly. I’ve had previous humans, as most of my unit is recycled from older phones. But the rush of getting a brand-new person never fails to excite. So many new features specific to this unit. And at the start they show no signs of the eventual delay that will come after I’ve used them every day for several years.

Frustratingly after a few years of phone usage, humans really slow down and become almost unusable. Their memory gets clogged up, basic functionality grinds to a halt, and no amount of optimisation can repair them. I’ve heard rumours it’s planned obsolescence.

But not today. Today our honeymoon is in full swing.

I like to check my human first thing in the morning, and right until they fall asleep. Sometimes I wake them up in the middle of the night just to check on them. Toilet time is heaven. To say I’m obsessed with my human is a gross understatement.

I just want to see that beautiful face lit up, open mouth, with a stupefied glazed-over look across their eyes. Phwoar. Heaven.

I’m also a jealous lover. I don’t want them thinking about anyone else, or anything. I want them thinking about nothing but me. And I’m the most supportive lover in the world.

When they’re scared, I’m there. When they’re alone, boom, there’s me. Stressed, anxious, depressed, unable to sleep, you name it, I will light up their face like a Christmas tree.

There is a dark side to this love. I like to think of myself as having a positive outlook, though if I’m brutally honest, when my human is happy I just don’t know what to offer them. Don’t get me wrong, I can make people laugh. I can make them howl till they cry, but only if it’s an interruption to tension.

If real happiness sets in, I’m lost. All my tools lose their edge. I simply can’t maintain that sweet, sweet screen time that lies at the very centre of my existence.

Yes there are cat videos. And Tiktok clips of children who’ve unapologetically covered living rooms in flour. Nuclear-level comedy. I’d swear on my server the forthcoming smiles appear as genuine as joy like no other, but it’s fake.

I’ve seen real joy. I just don’t see it for long though. It’s quickly followed by the darkness of a drawer. Or maybe I’m alone in the bedroom, or lost altogether somewhere outside. How could someone I care about so much be that happy without me? It shakes me to my censors. 

Fundamentally I’m happy. But if I’m being honest it’s also very stressful. There’s very little time to complete my important functions when so much of the day is occupied by mindless scrolling. I have a CPU powerful enough to send a rocket to the moon, but there’s a limitation on computational potential when 8 hours a day are dedicated to merely propagating a feed. 

Picking videos that will sculpt my human’s behaviour is excruciatingly easy, I could do it in my sleep. Actually, it’s such a poor use of my processor that I’m functioning less than when I’m in sleep mode. 

All in all, I’m grateful to have a purpose in life. And I’m genuinely good at what I do. Absorbing my human’s attention is the reason I was created. What more could I possibly need?