Human Condition

Miette’s phone was passed down the line of eager girls, and one by one they held down home, spoke into it. Charlotte was first--'I love you the most, Siri,'--and when the voice replied indifferently, on it went to Fariha, Kimmy, Lola.

Suhyeon tried her mother tongue: 'Siri, translate ‘I love you’.'

'English!'

But no luck (it seemed ingenious at the time). By the time the device landed in Hua’s hesitant hands the list had been exhausted.

It had been some time since the sun left the sky, many nights later, when Hua decided she’d try again. The premise was simple, Charlotte put it best: Get Siri to say she loves you back. Perhaps it had been a long day (The pale blue of her laptop screen still imprinted on every surface in her room), but the thought of a voice in her bed was exciting, and she couldn’t sleep either way, and she was too tired to argue that Siri didn’t use female pronouns, if any at all. Hua was alone now. It was dark outside.

‘Siri?’

She’d never had any reason to call for the assistant before, and as she heard her voice hang in the cold air, she suddenly felt ashamed. Hua pressed on.

'Siri… I love you.'

Hua felt her mouth curl over each ‘o’ sound, warming up the unfamiliar words. She imagined how it might sound from outside her room.

'Siri, what do you think of me?'

It appeared to her that her own voice was much louder than the assistant’s, as if it were afraid somebody would hear.

'What do you think of me?'

'...Who am I to you?'

Hua softened, seeing a rectangular bubble grow at the top of the screen, attached with a photo of her own face. She couldn’t remember ever taking that photo, but there she was. Above it, in small font, CONTACTS.

For some reason, the voice’s text to speech translation of the pink flower emoji was so endearing she found herself trembling beneath the glowing screen. 'You', Hua; 'Me', Siri. Purple and green discs spun wildly in rhythm to Siri’s clinical delivery as Hua asked the same question over and over. The voice sang her to sleep.