There’s a difference between retired and senile, but my son seems to think that anyone who was born before corneal wifi can’t manage on their own. Last week he wanted to show me how to operate a networked refrigerator. Nevermind that I designed the damn things for thirty years.
Today’s insult is a Ninu, a fluffy robotic kitten. He says it’s to keep me company. He means he’s too busy programming electronic toothbrushes to bother visiting me himself.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” he asks.
“It,” I say. “It’s a thing, not a she.”
“Whatever you say, dad.”
The piezo-electric buzzer in its throat purrs whenever I scratch any of the eight-six tactile points on its skin. I’ve found them all, I know.
***
My son bought me another Ninu today because the first one is broken. I think I might have done it on purpose after I discovered that camera and voice recorder in its head. Or maybe I just dropped it, or it got into a tussle with the vacuum-bot. They don’t always get along. Sometimes I forget things, but my fingers still remember the wires, know when the wires are wrong. I’m not that old, you know. I don’t need my son spying on me with an electronic pet — I can take care of myself. I have a right to privacy. Next thing you know he’ll be bringing me one of those dementia-bracelets that records the RFID tags of everything I touch. ”Don’t forget to wash after you go,” the system will say. Can you imagine that? Version II is nice though, there’s something under the fancy fur that tightens and relaxes when I pet it.
***
A familiar man is sitting on the couch opposite me. He’s a nice man, just happened to come by after I’d slipped in the garden. I guess he was in the neighborhood.
He seems content not to say anything, so I don’t pay him much heed. I stroke Ninu, and she arches under my touch, purrs gently and turns over for a belly-rub. She’s a wonderful creature, a beautiful creature, a creature that always seems to understand me. She looks after me too: she has a special yowl for if I leave the kettle on, a different one if I’m about to leave the house without my keys. She doesn’t want me to get locked out, and when it’s raining, she reminds me to take an umbrella. ”Isn’t she great?” I say with a smile, glancing up at the man on the couch.
“She is,” he says, returning the smile, but his eyes seem strangely sad.
Finale Doshi designs intelligent systems and robots.
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24 Responses to “THE NEW PET • by Finale Doshi”
Comments
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November 27th, 2009 at 2:56 am
Too bad they still haven’t found a cure for senility in this high-tech future. Well done.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Excellant. Loved the way you’ve melded hi-tech with emotion. Five from me.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:16 am
This was a nice story in its own right. The pacing was a little too abrupt, but that’s hard to avoid in a short piece.
But . . . really, EDF, two stories about aging dementia in a row? Almost makes me pine for the days when every other story was about My-Uncle-the-Serial-Killer.
November 27th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Liked this! Once a cat lover, always a “cat” lover…
November 27th, 2009 at 7:03 am
This story was going fine until the second scene-break. Then all of a sudden it, or I, got lost. Total change of feeling, and I had to read that third section several times before I figured out what was going on. The shift was just too abrupt to feel comfortable. If this was the old man suddenly losing it, it seemed too sudden to be realistic.
Oh, a minor typo, “He’s a nice a man …” at the start of the third section.
November 27th, 2009 at 7:41 am
What a great story! As someone who swears that she detests any kind of speculative or futuristic fiction, I’m constantly eating my words, thanks to many marvelous EDF authors. Good job!
I want one of those kitties, BTW.
November 27th, 2009 at 8:11 am
4 stars
November 27th, 2009 at 8:23 am
I like this story; it stirred compassion in me for both father and son.
November 27th, 2009 at 8:30 am
I can haz robot? Srsly?
Nicely done!
November 27th, 2009 at 9:28 am
It’s interesting to read two such different stories about dementia on consecutive days – I have to say that this story grabbed me considerably more than yesterday’s. I think the mixture of sci-fi and emotion works really well, and the slide away from reality on the part of the narrator is achingly sad. The last section didn’t jar me at all – I assumed that quite some time had passed or else the previous two sections were written/thought by the narrator during more lucid periods, and the difference between when his mind was sharp and when it was so dramatically reduced was excellently portrayed. Very genuine voice.
November 27th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Wow, for teo stories dealing with dementia in a row, both were quite good! I orginally thought he didn’t need the robots and empathizied with him, hating his son’s spying. When the second part started I was heartbroken. Great job at really getting the reader to empathize with the character their reading about.
November 27th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Yet another dementia story. This one didn’t take the easy road into glurge like the last one. But still…
November 27th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Nice work, this portrait of dementia in a near-future world. The technology advances, grows ever more sophisticated, while the human animal, alas, remains the same. Well done.
November 27th, 2009 at 10:51 am
It begins to look like EDF **REALLY NEEDS** a separate category for Dementia stories, so those of us who would prefer **NOT** to read them can see them coming and skip that day’s story! I find stories like these two unpleasant and disturbing, and quite honestly I wouldn’t read them if I had advance warning of what I was getting into. Not just that I don’t like them, but they fall way outside my comfort zone.
November 27th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Typo corrected; thanks, Jim!
The two stories yesterday and today were deliberately placed side by side for contrast as two different takes on the same issue.
I don’t know if it’s random coincidence or an internet prompt somewhere that’s responsible for the stories on dementia that we’ve been seeing lately. We don’t actively seek out these pieces, and we reject far more of them than we accept. It just so happens that these particular ones stood out as unique, and we felt that it would be a shame not to publish them based solely on the topic.
In terms of creating separate categories for different subject matter, we can’t possibly do that for every theme and topic — it would become way too confusing and the sidebar would be miles long.
I apologize to Jim and anyone else who finds this topic outside the comfort zone. Unfortunately, we can’t possibly know and be sensitive to everyone’s different areas of concern, since it differs from person to person and by level of sensitivity, and we simply don’t have the resources to tag every story with every theme, issue, or sensitive area it might infringe on.
November 27th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I really didn’t notice that yesterday’s and today’s were both dementia stories until I read these comments. They are so very different; one futuristic and one timeless.
I like the scifi based references in this one. The change from past tense to present tense threw me until I realized it was meant as a time jump. Nice job.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I’ll see your pair of dementia and raise you a cat robot.
Frankly, I couldn’t be happier with the range and diversity of Every Day Fiction. There seems to be a place for everything.
Ricky Nelson said it best….
‘n’ it’s all right now, learned my lesson well
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself
November 27th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I thought this, paired with yesterday’s offering, was immensely powerful. Two aging characters, one female and one male, each demonstrating different viewpoints and reactions to the control in their lives having been taken away. We need such jostlings once in a while. Well done, authors and EDF!
November 27th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Camille Gooderham Campbell: Well, the suggestion to have a separate category for this was not “serious,” in that it is indeed impractical. And I realize you can’t possibly know what will be disturbing, out of the “comfort zone,” for every story and every reader. Your explanation that it was an “editorial experiment” (if you will accept that phrase) with these two particular stoies makes sense, and NOW I can see why you did it.
Previously, not knowing that, I (and I think some others) found two “uncomfortable” stories in a row more than twice as uncomfortable! It happens, I guess I just have to put up with it
Keep publishing good stories, and if I don’t agree with you on all of them, well, that’s the breaks!
November 27th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Well done with a nice tight arc that helps bring the story full circle. This technology isn’t that far off, and some of it is already here.
Telling a story from the POV of the senile character is always tough. If there’s weakness, he seems a little too on the ball. Still, neat trick making the reader aware of what’s happened by the end, even though the MC is out of the loop.
–John
November 28th, 2009 at 10:28 am
That’s a wonderful story, Finale.
My father died of Alzheimer’s, and I loved the way you’ve presented him in such a gentle way: vulnerable, confused, but rich in emotion.
As my father died, the thing I kept wondering to myself, was what it would be like if it happened to me. I guess a lot of those with relatives who’ve died the same way have wondered that. Hence all these stories about dementia.
And the robot is beautifully described. Clinical in the first two scenes, then warm and affectionate in the third. And not too futuristic. I can see them being made just like that.
November 28th, 2009 at 11:11 am
The patient seems happy enough. Cool to put us into his mind.
November 29th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Sad story. Nicely done.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Well done. The future is not as high tech as I thought it would be. The robot can be replaced with a guide dog and the narrator with a person loosing eye sight over time.
Hopefully in not to distant a future version III Ninu will also be capable of providing intellectual support and circumstantial information – that man on the couch is your son – or you seem to be tired, better take a nap – as a trusted human nurse or assistant would, and then may be things will not be so sad until very late stage of dementia.