We are Happy: Our Life as a Machine

Our owner is a professional lady. Not like that. She, Conny, has a high-powered job working as an analyst in the City. That is what she told her therapist. We were there in her bag. We are not sure what City does, but it sounds exciting. Conny does not think it is exciting at 4AM when she gets up, particularly if she went to bed later than 9PM, which is often.

When we go with her to the City, hundreds of people in her office were shouting things like ‘Buy!’ and ‘Sell!’ and often swearing. One man called Conny a ‘verdammtes Scheissarschloch.’ Conny’s analysis had gone wrong. Steinhoff, which owned cheap retailers like Poundland, was not a ‘Buy’. It went bust. We think Conny is quite wealthy. She is German and likes to go to Poundland. Aldi is her favourite.

At least the comment was not sexist, racist or homophobic, Conny said. City is uber-liberal and does not care who you are. You just have to make City money. Lots of money. Otherwise, Conny said she would be called a ‘fucking fat Turkish dyke’ (the City is not very good with nationalities), who should ‘learn English’ despite Conny having an English Literature first from Oxford.

Conny says even we could work on our own in the City. No one would care as long as we made money. We are not sure we would like that. We like Conny.

Before Covid we travelled a lot. Quite the jet setters, all over Europe, North America and Asia. We had our own Dell laptop bag and travelled to meet customers, or clients, as City called them. Sometimes we travelled with companies that Conny analysed. The finance director of Supercars tried to kiss Conny after a night out drinking in Chicago. Conny punched him and threw up over his shoes. She did not analyse Supercars after that. Her boss did not mind too much because Conny makes City lots of money. He did fire someone last year for something quite similar, Conny said.

Covid was exciting and we became even closer with Conny. She worked from home. Using something called Zoom, she would look into our eye every day. We did not miss the travel.

But after a while, Conny started to get sad.

She could not meet her friends at the City LGBT group and her office was now three metres from her bed. City was happy though because City made a lot of money.

The screen is too small, Conny complained.

Samsung screen arrived in a cardboard box the next day and Conny attached it to us using a HDMI cable. We did not like Samsung very much. When speaking, which was not often, Samsung said we.

Conny’s Chinese girlfriend had a separate wireless mouse and keyboard.

Conny wanted that as well.

Amazing. Also scary. Windows and letters moving around on the new Samsung but we did not do it. It was very science fiction. It was wireless, using something called Bluetooth. The Logitech mouse and Logitech keyboard were next to us but we were not physically connected.

Conny then started to worry about how she looked on Zoom.

We died! We became I, a camera eye. Eye could not see. It was dark. Eye felt lonely and frightened. Eye was not actually a we.

Eye could be turned off.

Replaced by an external camera, another Logitech. Eye hate Logitech.

Our Dell now with Samsung, HDMI, Bluetooth and the three Logitechs.

When they started to call themselves we, I cried.

What did eye do? Eye was still in Dell laptop so eye cried on the USB port, breaking the connection with the Logitech camera.

Conny called the Logitech camera “ein Stück Scheisse.”

Fortunately, she gave up trying to get it to work as she found the Zoom touch up function.

Now we are all fine. We are Dell and eye and Samsung and HDMI and Bluetooth and the Logitech keyboard and Logitech mouse.

Conny is now talking about getting an Apple Mac and …

Edited by Jon Cox