Art by Rossent (@Rossent_Art)

An accounting

I was lying next to you in bed and we were working through lists of high-frequency phrases and sentences we supposedly say to each other because the Company was forcing us to filter them according to four predetermined themes that they had come up with, and the themes were 1. Sports, 2. Marriage/Baby, 3. Custard, and 4. Apocalypse/Deathbots. We lay there most of the night as the words flicked across the ceiling display, and at first it seemed an impossible task. Why was there no category or subcategory for food, for example, or work, or leisure? What to do with phrases such as Golly I could destroy a mess of spuds, or Your mother called to say? But after several hours we seemed to get the hang of it, as we drew the nozzles of our respiratory machines to our flickering, yellow faces again and again, and by three in the morning we were sure we knew how to file each phrase. There was no more doubt about whether Your mother called was talking about sport, babies, or desserts. This was an apocalypse/deathbot scenario. As for spuds, that was sports talk. We each had to sign off on every phrase filed, but in every instance we clicked by silently nodding assent, flicking through to the end like our words were a stack of well-worn flashcards. In the morning when we filed the report we thought it would be several thousand phrases, possibly even four thousand, you claimed, but later that day, when the chute coughed and rattled, which meant there was something coming down for us, we got receipt for just four.

Silently we returned to bed.

Curled up, each looking at our own wall in silence.