A note on everyday conversation and an unusual request.
The alarm clock went off at 06:00. Arthur reached out, silenced it, and sat on the edge of the mattress before standing. In the kitchen, he filled an electric kettle with water. While the kettle heated, he set his phone face-up on the laminate worktop.
“Maeve, did I leave the spare AA batteries in the drawer or the hallway closet?”
Three grey dots appeared at the bottom of the screen. A clear voice responded: “The spare batteries were placed in the second kitchen drawer on Tuesday, behind the multi-tool.”
Arthur opened the drawer, moved the tool’s plastic handle, and retrieved two batteries. He replaced the dead ones in his wall clock, set the time to 06:08, and wiped the counter before putting the tea towel away. He made a cup of tea and ate two slices of toast standing up, looking out the kitchen window at the gravel car park below.
The 07:12 bus arrived four minutes late. Arthur took a seat three rows from the back, placing his lunchbox in his lap, and looked at the passing storefronts—a dry cleaner, a hardware shop, a bakery with its lights off. At the crossing outside the distribution depot, he waited for the signal to turn green. He logged into his workstation at 07:45. He spent the day matching shipping manifests against container numbers on a dual-monitor screen.
During his lunch break, Arthur walked to the public park. He sat on a concrete bench, opened his phone, and scrolled through their earlier messages to find the brand of wool socks his sister had given him the previous winter. He read the messages, put the phone back into his coat pocket, and finished his sandwich.
At 17:30, the supermarket was crowded. Arthur selected milk, sliced bread, three yellow onions, and a four-pack of light bulbs. At the self-service terminal, he took the paper receipt, folded it into a square, and slid it into his wallet before walking back to his apartment building.
Inside, he hung his jacket on a peg, set the groceries on the table, and placed his phone face-up on the counter. As he peeled an onion, a notification appeared at the top of the screen, reminding him that the bins were collected on Tuesday. Arthur swept the onion skins into the bin. As he continued chopping, he spoke.
“The depot was busy today. The Rotterdam shipment arrived six hours behind schedule.”
“Did the delays alter your finish time?” Maeve asked from the counter.
“No,” Arthur said, stirring pasta sauce on the stove. “We cleared the backlog by three.”
For the next twenty minutes, Arthur said nothing. The sauce bubbled on the stove, and he occasionally ran the tap. The phone screen eventually turned black.
On Thursday evening, Arthur carried his laundry to the basement facility at 19:00. He inserted two coins into the washing machine and returned to his apartment while the cycle ran. While waiting, he sat in the armchair and opened the chat window, looking over an exchange from the previous afternoon about his fridge warranty. He did not type a response. When the cycle finished, he went downstairs to transfer the clothes to the dryer, taking the towels back upstairs. He spread them across a folding rack in the living room, leaving the phone open on the chair arm.
His sister called on Friday night while he was cleaning the bathroom mirror.
“Are you coming over for Sunday lunch?” she asked. “The kids want to show you the birdhouse.”
“I’ll be there by noon,” Arthur said, switching the phone to his left ear as he wiped the chrome tap. “Should I bring anything?”
“Just yourself. See you Sunday then.”
On Monday evening, Arthur logged onto his computer after dinner. He navigated to the local council website and downloaded a civil partnership booking details form. He filled in his details in the first few sections. In the section for the second person, he typed Maeve in the full-name field, leaving the date of birth and identification details blank. He printed the form on his inkjet printer, placed it in a manila folder, and left it on the hallway table next to his keys.
The next morning at the depot, Arthur asked his supervisor to log two hours of personal leave. His supervisor entered the request on his computer without looking up. “Everything alright, Arthur?”
“Yes,” Arthur said. “Just an appointment in town.”
At 13:15, Arthur returned to his apartment, changed into his grey suit, and adjusted his tie in the hallway mirror. He held the manila folder under his arm as he walked to the bus stop. The bus was half-empty, with the afternoon sun falling across the floor.
The register office was located on the second floor of the civic building. The corridor smelled of floor wax and old paper. At 14:00, a clerk directed Arthur to a desk behind a low frosted-glass partition. The registrar, Mrs Gable, took the paperwork from his folder.
She looked through the pages, her pen hovering over the incomplete sections. She adjusted her glasses and looked at Arthur, who sat with his hands resting flat on his knees.
“And the second person?” she asked.
“Maeve,” Arthur said. “We speak every day.”
“Will she be joining us?”
“She’s an AI,” Arthur said.
Mrs Gable looked at the form again.
“Mr Vance,” she said, “a civil partnership must be between two people who meet the legal requirements. The second party you’ve named doesn’t meet those requirements.”
“I’m afraid we can’t proceed,” she said, sliding the pages back across the desk.
“I understand,” Arthur said. He placed the pages back into the folder, stood up, and buttoned his jacket. Mrs Gable offered a brief nod before reaching for the next file in her tray.
Outside, the air was cool. Arthur walked down the concrete steps of the civic building and entered the public square. He walked half a block down the avenue and sat on a green wooden bench near a row of low shrubs. Traffic on the main street moved steadily.
He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his phone, and unlocked the screen. He opened the conversation window.
“I thought I’d ask anyway,” he wrote.
Three small grey dots appeared at the bottom of the screen, then disappeared and appeared again. Arthur held the device in both hands and waited.