Sometimes, AuDy had found, people asked them to wait. This was transparently an exercise of power. Sit in there. I’ll be right through. Flat silence as minutes passed. There existed a line of tension between one human and another and as one person wound it tauter and tauter - with distance, or silence, or an enforced period of waiting - certain useful anxieties would be sure to emerge in the other. The logic of this seemed sound to AuDy.

On the other side of the room was a framed print of a man in the snow. He was lying on his back. A wire ran from the ceiling down to an outlet just above the floor, painted pale green. The top pin in the outlet carried electricity and the hexagonal grey one beneath it was a mesh hookup. For cleaning robots, and the like. The room was very quiet.

What the people who asked AuDy to wait failed to understand was that the line they wound as they brewed coffee in a neighbouring room would never grow taut. They could wind and wind and AuDy, silent in the waiting room, tracing the wire up the wall, would unspool their patience with an easy comfort. One minute was one hour was one month was one second.

Years later, just before the door opened, they remembered the man in the snow. He was lying on his back.

This week on COUNTER/Weight 0.2: Valuable Connections

What’s your lucky number, Aria?

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker)

Featuring Keith J Carberry (@KeithJCarberry), Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal), Ali Acampora (@ali_west), and Art Tebbel (@atebbel)

Produced by Ali Acampora

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Music by Jack de Quidt