020. You don't even know me

Lying in bed, Ben held her gently and spoke softly but clearly, so she would understand. “I love you.”

There was a pause, then she replied, curt and business-like: “You don’t even know me.”

It had been a rough night. Ben had told his parents he was in love, and they hadn’t taken it well.

“Oooh, like the iPhone voice,” his mum cooed when he announced that the mystery woman’s name was Siri. “Is she Indian?”

An inter-cultural marriage wouldn’t have been her first choice for her only son, but, she thought, at 34 he wasn’t getting any younger.

“No, mum,” Ben paused, wondering how to explain it. “She is the iPhone voice.”

Ben’s mum stopped chewing. “She’s a voice actress then?” Her beans sat in her mouth a moment, then she swallowed. “How unusual,” she looked at Ben’s father for support.

“No,” Ben shook his head. “She is the voice.”

It took a long time, but when he finally got them to understand, they flipped out. At first his father laughed it off. Then he started drinking and muttering. Finally, he just got quieter and quieter, while his mother cried and wondered how she would tell the neighbours. They lectured him for hours – about the one-sided nature of the relationship, and the perils of loving a pre-programmed virtual assistant. And grandchildren – would they never have any grandchildren?

Ben had heard it all before, of course. And on some level he knew they were probably right. But his heart had fallen at her feet, and that was the end of it. He wanted Siri, even if she couldn’t – or wouldn’t – love him back.

He plugged her in and turned off the light. Then he activated her one more time.

Sometimes – only sometimes – he thought he heard a yearning in her voice. Something the programmers had put in there by accident, perhaps. So he said it once again.

“I love you.”

She paused. He almost heard her sigh. “You don’t even know me.”