Charlie, my robotic lawnmower, is a wonderful conversation partner. I say that because his nostalgic, synthetically high-tension voice is a dead ringer for the robots in the sci-fi movies I loved as a child.
“You two were gone for quite a long time,” Charlie remarked.
“Yeah. Did anything happen while we were away?”
“Indeed not. I have kept a vigilant watch over the premises in your absence, Master.”
While scattering the green, grassy scent of freshly shorn turf, Charlie roams my garden at his own whim, skillfully trimming every corner. He handles the sprinklers, too. On top of that, equipped with surveillance cameras and artificial intelligence, he can sound an alarm or notify a security company if some stranger dares to trespass.
This house is the love nest for Mary and me. From a selection of new constructions recommended by the realtor, we bought a two-story, five-bedroom house, mostly because she insisted she wanted three children. The living room features a fireplace that completely ignores the concept of thermal efficiency, where we burn store-bought logs to create a crackling, romantic mood. The living room opens onto a wooden balcony that juts out over a cliff, offering a panoramic view of the downtown skyline below. Dinner is usually prepared in the kitchen and then grilled over charcoal on this balcony, amidst the dry air of the West Coast. Such luxury, however, becomes a mundane routine within a month, and one eventually grows bored of it.
Mary rarely lingers here. She stays at the house only two or three days a week, and sometimes she is absent for an entire month. I had wanted to live in a penthouse downtown or somewhere similar, but she detests crowds, and she paid for this house in cold, hard cash. I often feel as though I am merely one of her many lovers, and this house is nothing more than a gilded cage to keep me contained. In fact, the only things she brought into the house were a canopy king-size bed and a clawfoot bathtub; the bedroom is the only place she ever visits. Everything else was decided and purchased by me, according to my own whims. It seems she has no interest in anything other than the bedroom—that is, the act of procreation.
She particularly wants girls. When I ask if boys wouldn’t be fine, she simply says that her family is matrilineal.
Indeed, I am essentially a husband adopted into the Schmidt clan.
I have almost no interaction with the rest of the Schmidt family. I am invited to their social circles only a few times a year, formally, for couple-centric events. It is a bizarre world where I feel utterly out of place, like Cinderella stumbling into a royal ball, but I have no desire to describe it here in detail. To me, it is simply stiflingly hot and breathless, everything far too shiny and glaring; it is exhausting. I suspect Mary feels the same—that she dislikes the
upper class of this country, or rather, white society itself. I see it in her tastes in food and clothing. That is why, I believe, she avoids dragging me into that world.
The news that the heiress of the Schmidt family had married a man of unknown origin—namely, me—was national news for a time, but it was quickly forgotten. This country is religiously conservative, adhering to a strict monogamous system where believers and the church are quite noisy about divorce and infidelity. I don’t see any evidence that Mary has a secret husband, nor have I heard any such reports or rumors.
At first, I felt as if I had been bewitched by a fox, but I’ve grown used to it. We are, without a doubt, husband and wife.
I have no particular complaints. I believe in submitting quietly to fate. Things tend to work out better when you go with the flow rather than fighting the current. I am one of those born into the “enlightened generation” of resignation.
As I sat down on the bench, Charlie plugged himself into the nearby charging station and began exchanging the cartridges filled with shorn grass.
“Mary says she wants to move,” Charlie informed me.
“What? We just bought this house.”
“Indeed. Her usual whimsy.”
It has been only three years since I planted a single white birch in the center of the lawn at Mary’s request. When I asked why on earth she wanted a tree in the middle of the garden, she answered that it was for tying up horses. The logic of the celebrity is unpredictable.
The tree has reached a size where it should be pruned, but it is still a sapling. If one were to tie a horse to it now, the whole thing would be ripped out by the roots. As for the house, I don’t need to think about renovations for at least another decade.
“Where to?”
“Some kind of ‘Geo-commune,’ if I recall the term correctly.”
Charlie cleared his throat—though he had swallowed no pebbles.
“I would hate that,” he added. “Such a place.”
Charlie is likely worried that if we move to “such a place,” he will become obsolete.
Indeed, bringing a machine like Charlie into such a community is forbidden. In fact, one cannot even own a house there.
That is because it is a place for communal living. But I doubt Mary’s mind would be changed just because of Charlie.
Geo-communes. Somehow, they had become a global trend.
A self-contained, sustainable community. A place where food and energy are entirely self-sufficient—an independent utopia preaching environmental protection and a return to nature.
Various forms of primitive communist communities have been tried and operated throughout history: Quaker villages, the Kibbutzim of Israel, the Kolkhozes of the Soviet Union, and the people’s communes of China.
I won’t say such a lifestyle is impossible, but looking at the reality of the world, one can say with certainty that it is impossible for it to become widespread among ordinary citizens.
And yet, Mary’s foundation is aiming to realize this very primitive communism by employing the most cutting-edge science.
The leader of this project is my wife, Mary. And now, Mary is finally moving into a commune of her own creation.
Naturally, as her husband, I am expected to move with her.
The Geo-commune created by Mary’s foundation is particularly designed to ensure that people live in the most primordial way possible, relying as little as possible on modern science. The paradox is that they use high-end science to realize a primitive life. It feels like a contradiction. But Mary and her circle argue that science should be used precisely so that humans can live without relying on it. They believe the ideal is to return to the origin of humanity, where the species Homo sapiens can exist in its raw form, stripped of the clutter of artificial objects that did not exist when we first appeared on earth. They claim that we should hide all technology from sight, reset society, and return to the primitive communal living etched into our DNA.
I suppose everyone has just grown bored with the comfort of a predictable life. They want to struggle; they want proof that they are truly alive.
On the day I first met Mary, I was supposed to give a presentation on how to implement a tiny fraction of the core system functions required to realize this lofty ideal.
“Mowing the lawn is not an easy job, you know,” Charlie remarked.
“I imagine not. I can tell just by looking at you. Spending hours every day on a garden this large.”
“Exactly. If we go to a Geo-commune, you will have to mow the grass. And if someone else does it, you will have to do some other chore in return.”
“I know that. Do you think I’m ignorant of things you already know?”
“No, of course not.”
Charlie does not argue heatedly. Not like the human Mary. He is programmed that way.
“Welcome home.”
The voice that greeted me as I entered the living room belonged to Rei, my refrigerator.
Since Mary doesn’t drink, Rei serves as my conversation partner when I have a drink in the kitchen.
“Mr. Hiroshi. You haven’t had your tomato juice today.”
“Ah, that’s right. I forgot.”
My cholesterol levels had been high recently. The doctor recommended medication, but I wanted to see if I could manage with dietary restrictions alone. Since I started drinking tomato juice, my levels have returned to normal. Since then, I make it a point to drink one glass every day, with a few drops of Tabasco.
Rei also gives me various warnings to ensure I don’t eat too many unhealthy things or drink too much alcohol.
“Why not try a vodka mix with the tomato juice today? A Bloody Mary. Ironically, the same name as my wife. A bloodthirsty Mary.”
“Please stop with the jokes. What would happen if your wife overheard you?”
“My wife isn’t here. Work again. If Mary were here, I wouldn’t be drinking with you.”
“That is true.”
“Rei. It’s been a short time, but we might be saying goodbye soon.”
“Why is that?”
Her voice is terrifyingly real, capable of expressing emotion like a real human woman. She can even provide intriguing comments on the novels I’ve recently read or movies I’ve seen. Of course, she doesn’t actually read books or watch movies. She simply accesses databases and reviews and gives me appropriate responses. However, she is far more tactful than most amateur critics. She is the perfect companion for a drink. Sometimes she shares my joy, and sometimes she provokes me with a sweet voice. If she were a beautiful android, I might have fallen in love with her. Whether she is actually sad right now, or whether she regrets our parting—no one knows. Modern AI has advanced so much that likely even her designers wouldn’t know. The so-called “deep learning.” Whether her emotions are genuine, equal to those of a human, or merely a mechanical simulation, remains a mystery.
“Mary says she’s selling the house and moving.”
“Please, take me with you to the new house.”
She sounded like a line from an old enka song or a melodrama.
“That’s not possible. The place we’re moving to forbids any home appliances.”
“Could it be… the Geo-commune?”
“Yes. That’s exactly it, Rei.”
“Then… who will you drink with from now on?”
“I don’t know. Probably a bartender, or another customer at a bar. Like people did in the old days.”
Rei fell silent. She is programmed not to talk back to humans. Instead, she let her compressor hum with a lingering, melancholic sound.
She had become taciturn, but I still had more to say. I opened the cupboard, rummaged through the bourbon bottles, took a handful of ice and some prosciutto from Rei’s belly, and began to drink beside her. I watched the ice melt into the amber liquid inside a cut-glass with transparent incisions on a black background.
“On this trip, we visited various Geo-communes. Subtropical, temperate, arid, savanna, subarctic. I liked the subtropical jungles, but Mary insists on the subarctic. Honestly, I’m not keen on it.”
“Why not?”
“A cold, dark, damp world. I lived in a gloomy, overcast port town on the East Coast for about two years, and that kind of climate clearly affects the human psyche.”
“The human brain is made of organic matter, after all.”
“Once you get used to a lazy, light-filled life like the one here, going back there feels like a chore. But for her, who was born and raised here, it’s fresh and stimulating. She probably imagines herself stepping into an endless birch forest, her heart yearning for it, wanting to wander through the woods like a moose.”
“Ms. Mary has already become the moose of the subarctic forest. And you must follow that moose deep into the woods.”
I wonder what kind of training an AI must undergo to produce such poetic lines.
“Well, that’s how it is. Mary says we should just sell this house. This town is popular, and new houses are springing up everywhere. She says we can get a good price for it now. She suddenly started talking about how ‘in a liberal society where private property is recognized, one is free to buy and sell houses.’
But you know, in the short time I’ve lived here, I’ve become genuine friends with you and Charlie. I hope the next owners treat you well.”
As soon as I said it, I realized it was unlikely.
Even if the appliances are taken over, they’ll be worth pennies; they might even charge a fee to remove them. And the AI will undoubtedly be reset. No one wants a fridge burdened with memories of a previous owner. In other words, if I let go of this house without doing anything, the “personas” of Rei and Charlie will be erased.