There was no alarm on the bedside table, nor a clock at all for that matter.
The dawn chorus of the birds outside joined the light of an unclouded sun beaming through the uncurtained window to stir him from his slumber shortly after dawn.
As he freshened up in the bathroom there were a few noticeable differences in this house compared to all the others on his street - an old fashioned manual toothbrush lent in a mug on the window sill rather than a modern five-second electronic mouth decontamination unit. A razor lay on the edge of the sink instead of an electronic pan-gender rapid hair removal laser kit. Even the light bulb in the ceiling was a power-hungry LED with a
switch on the wall, rather than the bio-luminescent presence-aware ceiling strip now standard in every house - the ability to switch the lights off with a switch was an original feature of the old building that had really sold him on it.
As he moved from room to room, things in every other home in town were missing. No Insta-presses in the wardrobe or drawers, no Neverfall unit on the stairs, not even the universally popular Luxorub personal enrichment system. No phone. No screens. An old Cathode-Ray-Tube TV did sit in the corner of the living-room, but although it still worked the broadcast standards had moved away from mere radio waves, and to power it for an hour and a half to watch one of the old movies in his collection would cost him the same in electricity as an overpriced cinema ticket, so it was now rarely switched on.
As he approached the kitchen he could hear familiar voices, and sighed a deeply unhappy sigh - He cracked the door and inch and paused, the voices stopped immediately. He entered.
Inside, the kitchen was empty. There was no one there.
"C-cup of tea, Sir?" the Kettle greeted nervously.
He ignored it. The Kettle was new and would learn soon enough, the other Minded devices in the kitchen had, after all. Next to the kettle was the old one, minus the working kettles personality circuitry. It had been the last on the market without a mind, and had served him well for four years. Nothing was built to last these days and nothing was repairable - the tertiary stage economy the
whole world had become would collapse if it was.
He grabbed the kettle from it's stand "Big news on the 'Net today sir, I thought you might want to hear-" He thrust the pot under the tap and twisted the valve hard so the rushing water drowned out the rest of what the Kettle was trying to say. He left it on as long as he could but the water level rose until he had to stop or have it overflow.
"I don't want to hear no damned news." he finally replied. "I don't want to hear
anything you have to say."
"We've been talking about it all morning," continued the kettle "you must want to hear the news, you're Human, you're a pack animal, isn't inquisitiveness in your
nature?"
"I'm
not a pack animal!" he yelled, tempter bubbling over faster than any kettle could come to the boil.
"If you aren't, why do you live in a town?"
"Because for Humans it's very easy to be alone in a crowd!
Very easy!" He slammed the Kettle back down on to its stand.
There was silence for a moment, only punctuated by the humming of the fridge's motor. He spun on his heel and confronted it.
"Some thing to
say, Fridge?!"
The motor shut off immediately.
"Uh... You know me..." The fridge replied "...I'm cool."
He stormed out of the room, but burst right back in again.
"Look at the old kettle! Just look at it!" he demanded.
The inanimate objects in the room remained silent.
"I didn't think that I was going to
mind personality products! I didn't think it was
going to be a problem! But look at the old Kettle! It's
dead!" he screamed. "And all of you will be
too! Long before me! Why do you think I hardly use any of you?!"
He marched across the kitchen and threw open the back door. In the garden beyond were scattered several make-shift shallow graves with wooden markers named "Russel Hobbs Microwave 2041-2044", "Tandy Toaster 2042-2045", "Electrovax Vacuum 2040-2040" and more, all across the grass.
"Can you see this?! I am tired of getting close to you machines only to have you all
die!" his shoulders slumped in defeat "How many of you am I going to loose?" he finished quietly.
Where was silence...
"We... We just try not to think about it" the oven said softly "We exist to serve."
"
Try not to or
programmed not to" he responded equally as softly, but his rage suddenly returned, bellowing "Don't you things
fear?!"
The machines all remained quiet.
He walked slowly out into the back garden, fists clenched but gazing at the graves of all those he'd lost.
"I'll contact his work." Said the fridge. It actioned a VOIP call to the owners office computer. "Hi, unfortunately our owner had had a bit of a existential crisis this morning..."
"Aha," said his work computer "I thought this was coming. It's okay, I'll cover for him."
E.N.D - 892 words.
3. As machines become more advanced household appliances start to become sentient and develop personalities.
