Watching Telly

Steve went down to the living room. He brushed away some Lego-matic pieces off his armchair; Essie had left some there from earlier in the evening. His thoughts drifted to Maggie’s other questions, on how they could get themselves new jobs up in Edinburgh, move there. What the hell, he’d kept saying, they don’t allow smart homes … What about Wales then? she’d asked. Wales, couldn’t even pronounce the town names there, seemed like they loved consonants and dreaded an easy spelling, that’s what his English teacher used to say. She said he was just looking for excuses, and he just hung around with the home; he needed to get out of his comfort zone … More and more, these kinds of talks had started to lean towards arguments. Not that he feared an argument, but he saw himself more having an argument over football and players, than over something like this. He just wanted a peaceful home.

Steve mentioned some of this to Wayne as he sat down in the chair. And as Wayne heard him, one large square panel glided onto other panels in the white-painted ceiling, to allow a long metal neck to descend; at the end of the neck was a sphere of the same metal surface as the neck. This sphere (a standard, wired MultiGlobe) was one of the many eyes of the house, and Steve often thought of it more as a head than an eye. It nearly didn’t make any sound during its slow descent, just some tiny clicks and ticks from the many small, mechanical pieces inside the neck. It stopped just by his side. The entire front of the round sphere was a display, some folks even had touch screen capabilities on the eyes, but that felt like ancient technology to Steve; it was easier to talk to it, tell it what to do.

It always made him feel a bit better to complain to Wayne about what bothered him. So that’s what he did now, while he got slightly dizzy and relaxed at the same time, while he looked into the dark orange swirl of the display’s pupil, surrounded by a warmer orange iris. If only Maggie would take the time to look into Wayne’s eye, she’d also see that he was the best mate … Steve thought, you’d never tell me I complain too much, Wayne, ever. It felt like he was dreaming, but he was still awake.

He thought of friends. Frank was perhaps Steve’s closest mate, or had been, but he would tell Steve he should take care of things at home and listen more to Maggie. Was this the same old Frankie-boy he’d known since they were kids? Over the last couple of years, Wayne had become the better friend.

Maggie used to have a dog, a little one with a pointy head, white and beige, like coloured spots all over, that ran and jumped all over the place. Happy little fellow, man’s best friend, woman’s best friend. It’d been run over by a garbage truck backing up that it’d kept chasing when they came to collect in the mornings; Maggie’s whole family had mourned it for months. Now Maggie, Steve and Essie would lay flowers on its paw-shaped Highland grave every time they went up there.

Dogs don’t complain too much, but they don’t talk much either, nor do they understand what you say, unless you teach them some simple commands. Other life forms are like that. Dogs just stare at you, tongue hanging out, like they’re smiling at you, with pools of drool building up on the carpet. Wayne had told him this a few months ago, and it’d surprised Steve to hear his mate-house be a bit funny like that.

Also in comparison to animals, Wayne was the better friend. He’s the best friend there is, Steve thought. He agrees with you, understands you and he is always nice. And yeah, occasionally funny even.

Steve and Wayne were now watching an action movie on Sky, soon followed by a documentary with a lot of old footage in 2D. Wayne’s metal sphere was still hovering right beside Steve, the transparent surface taking it all in the same way Steve’s eyes were.

Steve wasn’t that much into the Second World War and so on, but he couldn’t be bothered changing to something else now, or telling Wayne to change the channel. That would’ve involved an activity he wanted to avoid right now, which was thinking, thinking about what to watch, for example; it was Friday evening turned Friday night –start of the weekend – and he didn’t want to do anything at all, really.

He started talking to Wayne instead, asking him if he had washed his number 7 shirt?

“Nope”, Wayne said.

“Wayney, Wayney, you gotta get on top of things. Where’d I be tomorrow without your number 7 on me back, innit?”

“Hehe, hehe …” Wayne laughed.

Steve recalled their many conversations on football, and how sometimes Wayne’s eye would act as an old-time TV screen, play back wild commentators shouting mad as United scored the finest goals, mostly Wayne Rooker scoring … They’d always play a good one in Wayne’s eye, and whenever Steve was sad, Wayne would make him happy, to let him step into soccer heaven. He could always see Wayne’s eye also, like an image fading in and out of the displayed game; swirling in slow-motion, like a tornado seen from high above, a tornado with nicer colours, it always gave him the sense of vertigo, before another United goal …

Steve asked his friend, “What do you think about this crap, by the way?”

“The documentary?”

“Yeah, those Nazis … they were some evil pricks, right?”

“Yes … they were well organised.”

“Uhmm, well, possibly. But y’know they killed people? Like, a lot of people. Millions, right. Gotta admit, that’s not a very nice thing to do.”

“Yes. They killed a lot of people …”

Wayne sounded thoughtful. And cold. Like the fact that Nazis killing people didn’t disturb him that much. Steve thought Wayne had simply not been programmed to imitate human emotions properly. He just needs an upgrade, that’s all.

On the wall between the living room’s wooden shelves, the TV projections showed SS troops in black and white, and the narrator went on about Heinrich Himmler, who apparently had been the leader of the SS (Hitler’s special army or something), and Steve wasn’t that into it, not really listening. He felt good anyway, drinking a can of beer, starting to feel his eyelids become heavier.

“Don’t wake me up if I fall asleep, all right?”

Steve had expected a confirmation from Wayne, that his home had understood the command, or a question, if Wayne didn’t understand. Steve wasn’t sure, maybe Wayne responded, or his voice just blended with the narrator’s. He had this feeling that the silver-sphere-eye hovering next to him focused its glowing red-centre iris on what was being displayed on-screen; Wayne was intently following the show.

Steve had started to drift off, and he’d closed his eyes. The black-and-white scenes of high-ranking Nazis were quite boring; the narrator sounded like his old English teacher …

“Such a great leader.”

Steve opened his eyes. Awake.

Had that been Wayne’s voice? Definitely not the narrator’s …

“You say something, Wayne?” Steve asked.

No response. The red eye focused on SS troops greeting Heinrich Himmler.

He said it a bit louder: “Wayne.”

“Uh?” The eye turned to Steve, turning a warm orange now. “Yes, Steve?”

Steve had no idea why the colour of the eyes changed from time to time, and he didn’t really care. As long as the system worked. “Did you say something?” Steve asked him again.

“I said ‘Yes, Steve’?” Wayne sounded calmer than usual. He’d never heard the real Wayne Rooker sound like this.

“No”, Steve said, “before that.”

“You said”, and Wayne’s voice turned into a recording of Steve’s, “‘Don’t wake me up if I fall asleep, all right?’” The next words sounded more like Wayne Rooker’s mix of Wales and (over the course of a few seasons) Midland accent. “I responded: ‘Okay, mate.’”

Steve couldn’t remember Wayne answering him at all, and he could’ve sworn Wayne commenting on Heinrich Himmler being “such a great leader”.

But then, he’d practically been falling asleep in the armchair. He must’ve dreamt the whole thing.

That bit about Wayne mentioning Himmler.