Going Shopping

He had planned to crash in front of the TV, even switch to holo-mode and let it surround him with images and sounds, then decided to get out of here instead. First, he went to the bathroom.

Maggie’s words were still in his mind as he standing there, “Essie wanted to you to read her a story last night.” Wayne had often offered to step in for Steve and read for Essie until she fell asleep. Wayne did that well, with his own charm, and Essie didn’t seem to mind, not that he was aware of; he’d passed her bedroom at times when Wayne’s arms would hold a book up in front of her, and another hand would turn the pages; and the only round eye capable of flying was floating above the bed, looking down at Essie, making sure she was happy …

While washing his hands, Steve caught glance of his own eyes in the bathroom mirror, and more often he would wonder whose eyes those were, it was like he didn’t know them anymore. The tired man looking back at him from the mirror never blinked, or just rarely.

Maggie had mentioned he always kept looking into Wayne’s eyes, the deepest he would look into any eyes, she’d been smiling, saying, “You look deeper into those eyes than mine; you gonna marry him?”

He remembered, when they first moved in to the house, only a year after Maggie and he got married; it was “full of opportunity” – those had been her words, not his. And Wayne had been so happy to greet them that first time they opened the front door, wanted to shake Steve’s hand and all, it’d almost seemed that Wayne had tried to hug them with all his arms, really friendly …

Steve was in the hallway now, thinking, he could’ve ordered home the groceries, but wanted a break from it all, and went out to the garage. Wayne opened the doors and as the car recognised him, it drove out for him to step inside.

“Where to?” it asked with the voice of Maggie’s favourite singer, Julie Angelic. Steve liked her voice, but wasn’t following all of that new soul Maggie was into; they never played those kinds of songs at soccer games. Well, this was his missus’ car; his was at the mechanics with a broken gyro.

“To the shop”, he said.

“Which one?” asked Julie.

“Marks.”

Julie gave no reply. They drove off. Sometimes, Steve got bored and drove manually, but today was Friday, so that gave him a good enough excuse to let the car do all the driving.

“Doing a good job there, Julie”, he told the car.

No answer.

“Julie, I said, you’re doing a good job.”

“Yeah”, Julie said, “I heard you.” Steve could picture a diva’s face, wondering why she had to bother with the fat bloke in the driver’s seat.

Maggie had not only selected the voice. When she’d bought the car last year, she’d specifically asked for a car with attitude: “… an independent vehicle, supporting equality, green and women’s views, to dare to have its views questioned, to be opinionated …”, something like that was what Maggie had told him, and something like that was written in the description of the car’s personality, in the DVLA registration document.

The car had of course never been offensive or anything, but did have quite the sarcastic tone along with these certain comments at times, oh man … During an hour’s ride to Maggie’s auntie, he’d even told the car to “shut up!” as it kept pounding him with the facts and all, about why we all should support the ass-riot-movement over in the states, or whatever it was again, and that would be the last time he’d ever tell Maggie’s sweetheart to be quiet. They’d argued for a week, it felt like, over his lack of support for hot issues in society.

A commercial poster wanting to sell you pills asked every passer-by, “Having a rough time?” In this car, you bet.

Julie didn’t seem to hold a grudge though for his moment of impoliteness. Even if she secretly did, she wouldn’t do anything, as security measures were programmed into her to protect people from robotic vehicles having the urge to get even in such circumstances. So no worries about having your testicles twisted by the feminist car.

He told Julie, kindly, to make a short stop. They still had five minutes to go and he felt like having a snack; he went in and got some candy bars from the little supermarket just up the road to satisfy his sweet tooth. Once in the car again, he told Julie to add the normal groceries to the Tesco list.

“Weren’t we going to Marks and Spencer?” Julie asked.

“Nah, let’s make it a longer drive.”

“Well”, she seemed to sigh, “it’s up to you … sir.”

He added a newspaper as well. Good to read what’s happening in the world, he thought, and later that evening the digital newspage would be lying in the bin, with only the headlines read out.

At Tesco’s he picked up the groceries without even stepping out of the car. The staff scanned his registration plate, and the amount was deducted from the joint account.

In the shopping drive-through counter, he asked if they were getting rid of the bots now and going all manual?

“Nahh”, the girl said, “just having some maintenance done to ‘em, tha’s all.” American apparently, one of many coming from across the pond looking to earn some extra bucks, go back rich and perhaps buy a car like Steven’s one day. “Darn customers complaining they ain’t good service they pay for, y’know. And geez, was gonna do ma five-hour shift, now, I ain’t goin’ nowhere, fore doing over-time.”

“Tough day.”

“Tell me about it, mister. It’s like that old song from back home, y’know, workin’ nine to five, hah … that a way to make a living? And I’m doing that tonigh’: I started at nine, and you can bet your horses I’ll probably do maself seven, eight hours today. Ain’t that something …”

“Eight hours? What does the union say about that?”

“They suck, man; they allow eight hours straight, only three breaks and lunch. Can you believe it? Better than the States, though; you’d end up working eight hours a day all the time, in the good state of Arkansas. But I tell you, baby, by six I’m all gone home, just watching some West Enders on ‘the telly.’”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Look at that dead thing over there, damn bot. One of em refused packing. What’s next, they up to start a union?”

“And you think you heard it all.”

“You never have, sugar-man, never have. All right”, she said with a big red lipstick-smile, Julie’s arms grabbing the two small bags, “that’ll be £189.70. Not shopping too much today?” She scanned the plate.

“Not today, just felt like a spin.”

“All right, y’all enjoy your evening now, adios muchacho.”

“Adios and cheers.”

“Cheers, darlin’.”

Off again, driving on manual now: the manly English cowboy in his modern horse, going back to the ranch.

“When was the last time Maggie spoke to me like that?” he asked Julie. “It was ‘baby’ this and ‘sugar-man’ that. Most things I get out of Maggie nowadays will be in the range of ‘couch potato’ if not ‘arsehole’, if she’s in her proper Scottish bad-mood. Just life, I guess …”

“When was the last time you called her anything ‘sweet’?” Julie asked.

Steve felt reminded of just how irritating Julie’s comments could be. “How about you just listening, Julie? And that we don’t talk?” said Steve.

“I am instructed to stand up for civil liberties of free speech.”

“Maggie told you that? You’re a car …”

“Indeed, she did tell me.”

“Well, uh … how about you exercise the very free right of being quiet then?”

“Suits me fine, contrary to your belief” – Maggie’s phrase, that was – “as long as you are quiet.”

“Well, if I happen to talk to myself or anything, then you are allowed to stay quiet too.”

“Do you often talk to yourself, Steve?”

“Only when I don’t wanna talk to stupid cars.”

“Too bad you’re not in a stupid car then. May I inform you, that I am also instructed by my owner to not accept any offensive remarks, and will be reporting this to Mrs Sutton upon her next drive.”

“Jeezus, lady, can’t you just be quiet?”

“As long as you are, Steve.”

“Ok, fine, I won’t say a word to you from now on.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Perfect.”

“Indeed.”

He was going to just shut himself up, but burst out, “Seriously, do you have to have the last word?”

“You don’t like women having the last word?”

“Christ – no, it’s not like that. Okay. Never mind …”

“How is it then? Please explain.”

Steve decided he better stay quiet before he’d lose his shit, stop the car in the middle of the road and beat it with its own crowbar. He’d seen a guy do that once with a shiny new Porsche. Steve had wondered how one could go so mental over a car, and now he was starting to understand the guy. He shouldn’t have started this conversation; if it wasn’t enough already having an argument with Maggie earlier on, now he was having one with her car. Good thing Wayne isn’t like this.

He told her anyway to take a longer route home. As it was getting darker, they passed by the new block of flats where Frank lived, but didn’t drop by as he didn’t want to walk the hundred metres to the elevator. He could still call him later on.

He let Julie take out The Sun and have her read the one-page paper for him. “Just the main headlines please”:

New oil had been found out in the Pacific, long after it had run out in most places, and some clever green guy was saying we should ban the world from using what nearly killed us all, now we have finally made peace with Mother Earth, and she made global warming our friend. Someone killed a rock star down in South Africa and there was already a conspiracy theory out there saying, The Brazilian Mafia Did It! A heatwave in Siberia, and the Russian president wrestled a (presumably tamed) polar bear on the beach, before handing the local kids free ice cream. Poor people were starving in the Impoverished States of America, charities constantly urging the international community for immediate help; and Thai pop music kept dominating the music industry of today. What else was new? Same as always …

Sports pages were the only read in The Sun that didn’t feel like doing homework: Tottenham was to play against United next weekend, the coaches throwing virtual punches at each other and each other’s teams. For fun maybe, or because they sincerely hated each other.

Still a few minutes before arriving home. He asked Julie, very politely, to read him some of the obscure stories, please. She read a headline: “House kills fish.” What? She continued reading it aloud. Something about a smart home getting broken and overfeeding fishes. The owner wanted to sue the company because he thought the house did it with intent. At least it gave him a good laugh. Ridiculous.

*

So Wayne’s arms could only reach things from inside the hall, Steve had to park the car in front of the garage and carry the bags there himself. He thought again about getting new arms installed in the front lawn, when he got his next salary. Carrying groceries by yourself to the front door; shouldn’t have to do that.

Julie parked herself in the garage and Wayne opened the garage door for her. Steve heard the house tell the car, “A simple thank you would be nice …” Julie didn’t answer. She seemed to go into hibernation mode as the garage door closed.

Maggie and Essie had already had dinner while Steve was out. Now Maggie was upstairs doing some work, not because she had to, but because she really liked it, and as her company had a busy time now she took the chance to dive in to another project.

Steve finally called Frank while he listened to Essie playing some video game with Wayne in her room upstairs, that new sing and dance game starring eleven-year-old pre-teen pop star Lucy Wanga. That pop music sure is intense. If he tried to keep up with the moves his daughter and Lucy Wanga were doing, he’d end up with a heart attack.

Wayne put on the TV for Steve as he sank into the armchair. The phone activated again. He finally called Frank. They spoke for a while; he was doing some research, of course, and even without Steve asking, Frank told him he was comparing furniture, kitchen, garden and toilet appliances, which are now connected by wire or wirelessly to the house. Steve asked, oh yeah, what’s special about that? Some appliances, Frank said, like shavers and cars, run without the direct need of a house, but

most of the appliances won’t run nowadays without the home. Didn’t feel like news to Steve. Frank said he was reading about life in the twentieth century; it struck him how comfortable people have it now: “ …most people don’t appreciate what we have.”

“Yeah”, Steve said, “people’re never satisfied, innit.”

Frank said, “You know, you could see that as a form of greed really, to be never satisfied.”

“Yeah, guess so …” Steve brought them back on the more important subject of grilling some meat and buying beers for tomorrow. He asked if Frank had called Tom and the others. Were they all coming over? Frank said he’d double-check with Tom, hadn’t heard from him yet. So it was basically sorted for tomorrow then, he told Frank. “Duty calls, gotta go.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow.”

As soon as they’d hung up he got right onto the duties. “Chair on”, he said, closing his eyes. His daily massage. He fell asleep for a while with a bag of crisps in his hand, with the chair gently vibrating.