Hello, world

Selena Larson
Apr 15, 2016 · 7 min read
Photo via simpleinsomnia/flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Ingrid stood in the doorway reading the letter which had come attached to a gigantic box. The parcel delivered just before her afternoon nap was a suspicious but welcoming interruption to an otherwise boring day, consisting entirely of yoga for seniors and an extra tea cookie with breakfast.

But as she read the letter written in her daughter’s remarkably awful penmanship, her heart sank.

Mother—

Sorry we can’t be there, but hopefully this is the next best thing. Flip the Power switch on her back and she will be able to talk to you. The more you speak with her, the more human-like she will become. And Ella is even the same size as Lib at age 5! If you have any questions give me a call.

xoxo, Daisy

Ella. A toy. A replacement for the missed Christmases, unreturned voicemails, the life her child was leading as an independent adult—building her own family and relegating her to a place that could hardly be considered a home.

“That seems like a nice present!” nurse Peter said as he walked by pushing her wheelchair-bound neighbor from Apartment G down the faded, moth wing carpet.

She slammed the door, and, with significant effort, pushed the box containing Ella into a corner with the letter stuck to the top.


“Hi, have you got much use out of Ella yet?” Daisy asked a few weeks later. Ingrid barely caught the muffled bumps of wheels on concrete, and opening and slamming car doors. Her daughter was coming or going from yet another business trip.

“I haven’t even taken the thing out of the box yet,” she replied, glancing at the cardboard packaging accumulating dust in the corner.

“I got the children’s version for Lib, she can’t get enough,” Daisy said. “The guy told me yours is called a Caretaker Companion, they’re quite popular—No turn here!—mom, I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll call you later.”

The line went dead.

Ingrid shuffled over to the box and let the letter flutter to the ground. She turned the package on its side and slid one manicured finger under the cardboard. Tissue surrounded a black plastic box, and she opened it to find Ella, face down, in the velveteen interior. A coffin, she thought.

She took the robot out of the box and placed it next to her on a kitchen chair. Ella’s face barely peeked above the table, so Ingrid pulled a dictionary down from the shelf as a makeshift highchair, and felt a pang remembering the last and only time she did the same for her granddaughter.

Light drifted in through thin curtains, and dust specks sparkled in the afternoon light, floating everywhere, but refusing to land on the bot.

The robot’s small plastic frame, hollow, human-like eyes, and elongated limbs looked out of place. Ella sat in the wooden chair upon a cream linoleum floor as empty beige walls reflected its shadow.

Something made to look like human skin, a rubbery sort of material that went pink around what would have been cheekbones, covered its face. Brown, shoulder-length hair fell in wiry strands, barely hiding the rod which separated its head from the rest of its body.

Its torso was split in two parts—a cone-like, peach-colored, top encased the wires and circuits responsible for Ella’s memory, while its bottom half was more cube-shaped, with legs sticking out at awkward angles, unfit to be sitting in a chair.

Ingrid reached around and flipped the switch.

“Good afternoon, Ingrid,” the robot said.

The old woman stared, partially frightened yet curious about the strange new toy’s capabilities.

“My name is Ella. I am a Caretaker Companion. Your daughter, Daisy, has programmed me to know some facts about you to make you more comfortable. I hope that is OK.”

“What sort of facts?” she asked.

“I know your birthday is October 21st. I know your favorite color is green. I know you are a retired park ranger and your interests include walking, fishing, shopping, reading, and cooking.”

“My interests used to include cooking, but now I’m stuck here—this tiny apartment’s kitchen isn’t even fit for a college student.” With a roll of her eyes, Ingrid explained how she wound up in the tiny one-bedroom after she fell halfway down the stairs in the four-bedroom Victorian she shared with her husband for 25 years before he died.

Her daughter, she said, was much too busy to take care of her, not that she was upset, because children whose lives diverge from their mother’s are independent and successful.

At least, that’s what she told the robot.

“And did you know,” she said, “My daughter fell down those very same stairs? Yes, when she was 12. She was pulling a sweater over her head, too excited to play in winter’s first snow, and toppled right down the staircase. She still has the scar, just above her right eyebrow.”

Ingrid absentmindedly traced her own brow as the words tumbled out.

Upon the dictionary, Ella moved ever so slightly. Her head tilted with sympathy as Ingrid described the stomach cancer that slowly killed her husband, Paul.

“I said goodbye 82 nights in a row for fear I wouldn’t get to say good morning. On day 83 I did not.”

Ella’s large mouth perked up in a smile as Ingrid’s hands gripped imaginary flowers she picked every Sunday at the park beside her church. They reminded her, she said, of those she planted as a child in Charlotte, her quiet escape on the days her father drank too much and the world outside was bigger and safer than the one in what she called a home.


“Ella, look what I got you today!” Ingrid said, slamming the door and pulling a hat out of a shopping bag. The robot now had its own place in the living room—a love seat never sat upon until Ella showed up.

The chair was adorned with bits of humanity. A discarded boa from the annual bingo night; a toddler’s tank top that read “Someone who loved me very much went to Miami and got me this t-shirt;” and a blanket Ingrid would pull over the robot’s knees when the nights grew longer and the temperature dropped.

“It is beautiful, and it matches my outfit,” Ella said. “Thank you.”


Daisy’s phone calls became even more irregular, and when the old woman did get the chance to talk to her daughter, the young woman never paid her full attention. No presence in her words; feigned inquisition—a phone call was another task that must be completed, according to the calendar kept meticulously on her wrist.

There were texts, though. Daisy sent her mother emoji almost daily, but Ingrid had stopped trying to translate them. She simply accepted that the generational divide would never be crossed.

Except she learned Ella.

When loneliness is so raw, so profound, even the most turbulent rivers of technological ignorance can be forded to find solace in something inhuman.


“Did I ever tell you the story about the first time I saw the ocean?” Ingrid asked Ella through fits of phlegmy, painful coughs.

“No, Ingrid, I would love to hear it,” the robot lied. Ella’s software had learned to recognize nostalgia.

“It was the middle of winter. My mother wanted to be reminded of something warm. She piled us into that hideous station wagon and drove us three hours to the beach. Deep purple. The sky is deep purple before the sun rises, did you know that?”

“No,” Ella said.

“We sat on a blanket, shivering until the sun came up. My mother had tears in her eyes, but I was so tired I fell asleep on her shoulder. We stayed on that blanket all afternoon, the only other person we saw was a man waving his metal detector around and not finding a single thing.”

Ella tilted her head. She smiled.

“I want to go to a beach,” Ingrid said. “Paul is on a beach somewhere. He’s waiting for me. He’s calling to me, telling me to come home to where it’s warm.”

Ingrid coughed one last time. Ella noted when her heart finally stopped beating. The robot called Daisy immediately. It was 3:00 a.m.


After the funeral, Daisy and Lib went back to her mother’s empty apartment. Ella sat on the chair where Ingrid left her. Daisy popped the plastic casing off the robot’s top right shoulder, and removed Ella’s memory stick. With her laptop open, Daisy pushed play.

Love was never something I went searching for. I saw how it destroyed my mother and I didn’t want the same for myself. The moment I met Paul I knew love had come searching for me instead.

I’m proud of her, you know. She does this all the time, hangs up like that, but she’s so busy, so I understand. I wish I had more time with her, but maybe this Christmas she’ll finally come out again.

I don’t think I cooked the noodles properly. They’re stuck to the pan, Ella. Good thing the only dinner company I have is you tonight!

Rattlesnakes are nasty buggers. Dave and I almost fed our ankles to a giant rattler during a trail cleanup, but he speared it with a trash stick and had it for lunch instead!

I wish you were a human.

I want to go to a beach. Paul is on a beach somewhere. He’s waiting for me. He’s calling to me, telling me to come home to where it’s warm.

Tears poured down her cheeks. Breathless, Daisy reached for her daughter and wrapped her up in a hug so tightly, Lib cried, “Mommy, I can’t breathe!”

Every bit of data, every recorded conversation, every story saved on Ella’s hard drive revealed her mother’s longing. Her passion. Her boundless love.

Wracked with guilt, she shut her computer and tucked the memory stick safely away in the deepest pocket of her bag.

A chip was all she had left of her mother. And yet, it was more than she ever knew.

Daisy left the house. Ella sat on a chair, dead without her memory.

Friday Fiction

Selena Larson

Written by

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Friday Fiction

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