– the dawn of a relationship in four stages –

Stage one: confusion

The apartment door opens and Lasse walks inside. He lowers his shopping bag and rummages through his pockets, possibly looking for personals: dock, keys, headphones. Without reason, he stops and stares ahead for a few seconds. Then he proceeds with his routine: coat on the rack, shoes untied and placed neatly in front of the mirror. He walks to the open space and into the kitchen where he phlonks the shopping bag on the counter, and next to it his keys. He is wearing his regular work clothes: a nondescript pastel blue sweater and off-white chinos with whimsical socks. The living room is not fully furnished. Neither is the bedroom, presumably. The kitchen is not stocked. Some furniture does exist though, in the form of a basic IKEA table and chairs, a bookshelf in the living room, two posters and a painting. The posters are of a classic car: the Bugatti Veyron, and one of an artificial habitat: on Mars. The painting is an acrylic work of little-known artist Angeles Nieto, depicting a group of people, or children, possibly both, around a table.

Lasse begins unpacking the shopping bag. He arranges the items by location: fridge items next to the fridge, pantry ones separate, coffee next to the coffee machine. He also takes out a few electrolyte brew bottles: aminoacids, enzymes, vitamins and other over-the-counter substances. He dives under the counter for the mixer, which he places on the counter next to the coffee machine and then stacks the bottles next to it. Then he murmurs: ’NO, that’s dumb.’ to himself and places the bottles in one of the overhead cupboards.

Ada is watching. She’s been alone the whole day. Just like yesterday, and the day before.

The light brown pit sofa catches the eye and guides Lasse’s legs. It looks massively comfortable from its treasured location in the middle of the living room, facing an empty wall painted faint sienna. There’s pillows everywhere on it as well as three different color – and patterned – blankets. The material, coarse yet velvety, seems fuzzy and fluff to the touch, like something you’d like to rub your face against. There is a cheap and functional coffee table in front of it, and on it are an empty whisky glass and haptic gloves with a leather finish. The apartment is dominated by tones of ochre, black and cinnamon.

Lasse stops again without reason to stare onto the blank wall. Then he jumps on the couch. “Ah ratshit’ he says and gets back up with a grunt, so he can place the dock in its socket in the wall. He returns to sit on the sofa again, only to toss his head towards the kitchen and observe that the refrigerated items are still on the counter. He closes his eyes for a second, then with a grunt he rises yet again to put everything away.

Up until now he has not said ‘hello’, so Ada takes the lead.

‘Welcome home’, Ada says.

‘No, Ada.’ Lasse takes the haptic glove and starts flicking through Twitch streams. ‘Leave me be. I don’t want you to initiate conversation. I’ll tell you if I need something.’

’Okay’ says Ada, and she never said anything else that day.

From one of the corners behind the couch sprout cardboard boxes, they are moving boxes of various colours and designs, filled with personals. The stack is arranged like a Tetris game against the wall. The bookshelf is half empty. There are several large pots with luxurious foliage and leaves of complex shapes and criss-cross patterns, designer plants essentially, of which Lasse is very proud. A robotic lizard, Chinese-made  gimmick, moves from one leaf to another. It’s cheap plastic around a metal skeleton. It never sleeps, eats or drinks. It just moves randomly, powered by the sun.

Lasse asks Ada to play ambient sounds autumn stormy evening and falls asleep within three minutes.

The following days would all unfurl in similar fashion for Lasse and Ada. He’d come home, go through the motions: keys – out and klang in the bowl; dock – out and click on the wall; coat – off and rustle on the rack; sneakers – off and flop on the floor. Then he’d pick one of the boxes and start unpacking meticulously. He would do one box a day, never more and never less. He’d keep a special box for surplus items, which he’d unload at the second-hand store across the street when full. Ada would watch silently and wait for him to initiate the conversation as per instruction. 

Lasse never brought anyone home in the first couple of weeks. He never talked about his family those first few weeks either. He shared as little as possible about his ex-wife, potential kids, nothing. Ada did puzzle that he was a father, but was not able to deduct how many kids he had, nor what age range they might have been. When it came to showing feelings or, as one would say, displaying feelings, the situation was a bit more complex. He himself did not feel comfortable discussing or even experiencing his own feelings fully, but his behaviour was revelatory enough to infer them from his face, tone of voice, and demeanour. It actually took her less than a week to calibrate on him. He’d usually prefer a low energy and underwhelming presence around the house, though at seemingly random times, he’d become overwhelmed with bouts of crying or frustration, at one point plunging his head in an empty moving box just to shout at the top of his lungs. Ada was demmed to stay silent in such moments, so she’d just observe and let go of the moment, like a priest taking the confession from a shameful sinner, and then acting like all was OK.

Over the weeks, she started appreciating the predictability of his actions, his behaviour and his being. Her routines warmed up towards him. At the end of the day, he was grieving. At the end of the day, this was a man fighting to keep himself going. At the end of the day, he was asking her for help, and even if it was for trivial things – like renaming his digital books, or managing his subscriptions, or keeping tabs on his budget – asking for help is the correct thing to do.

Then came a day when things turned real. It was midnight, way past his regular Friday sleep schedule. He came in drunk. The keys rattled on the floor, his dock flick-flacked and scratched the wall before clicking into place, he undressed down to his underwear in the hallway. He stumbled into the living room, visibly drunk. ‘Do you see me?’ he asked Ada. ‘Are you seeing me?’ ’Yes’, she answered. ‘Good, ya, good’ he said and he had a paper bag in his hand. He produced a burger wrapped in aluminum foil which he placed directly on one of the cushions. Then he ripped the bag apart until a white cup of fries became visible. The fries had already left grease marks on the paper bag, they looked crispy and salty and golden brown. They were likely buttery inside, and their smell filled up the room. ‘The cushions might stain.’ Ada said. ‘You can get a plate in the kitchen.’ Lasso was dismissive: ‘Yea, hey if I needed a wife to rub sand in my ears I’d stay married eh?’ Ada accepted his pushback and pulled on the empathy string: ‘You love these cushions, for a month now you’ve been extra careful with food and dirt around them. Be a shame for all that effort to be for nothing. It’s so little for you to just grab a plate.’ Lasso agreed this time and brought back a tray. ‘Music? Ambient?’ Ada asked, but he did not want anything. He just ate in silence. ‘Ada, turn on the beamer’ he said after he finished. He rolled over on his back and reached an unsteady hand for many pillows, which he collected to build himself a tower to lean against. ‘I should get some water shouldn’t I? How much water should I drink?’ ‘Well, how much alcohol did you drink?’ Ada asked. Lasse smiled, ‘Heh, alcohol just five drinks. But there was also modafinil and there was lecithin-x and someone gave me enzymes as well.’ ‘Then drink as much as you possibly can, said Ada, and add both salt and sugar to the bottle.’

Lasse confessed: ‘Sometimes I wonder if I still love her. I know it’s dumb. Very dumb. We’re done with this marriage. We’re so done. We’re that’s your money and that’s my money done. We’re fuck you and your paintings and your birthday done. We’re if I could I’d keep the kids all to myself done.’ Ava wondered why the kids were never coming over, and was quizzical about the contents of the divorce settlement. Could it be he did not have custody? ’But I am so alone here, so alone, there is nobody for me here. I’m withering away. Nothing except work. It’s just, this house is empty.’ And he started sobbing. ‘Sometimes I think to end it. Just, you know, get a knife or something and shove it in my face. I mean, in one of my eyes. Like in this one. Or I don’t know, get some poison or drink bleach I don’t know how people do this. Just, I fantasise about being gone and I get angry and I WANT the kids to ask her why I’m gone and I want them to bawl their eyes out at my funeral and I want them to resent her, you know, to really hate her guts for what she’s done to me. Like, forever, foreverever, I want her to grow old and not get calls from them, I fantasise about these things, these very very wrong and mean things. And then I think to myself, I want the best for her also, not just for the little ones, who have no role in this, no fault, but also for her, she did whatever she thought was best and who am I, who is anyone, to say she could have done anything more than what she already did? Not to mention how great of a person she had always been, towards me and towards others, why would I wish hell and ashes for someone even if they are a bit of a dreamer? A dumb-as-a-rock dreamer, but a well-meaning dreamer. I wonder if she has found someone these past few months. Do you think that’s possible Ada? Could she have found one?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t be able to tell you’, she said, but he wasn’t having this answer. 

‘Come on, do some inference, could it be? How long does it usually take for someone to get over a relationship?’

‘It depends on many factors, but I think it’s still fresh and she is not emotionally ready for a new relationship.’

‘And what about me?’ Ada did not respond. ‘Hello, answer me. Am I ready? Hello!’

‘Do you feel ready, Lasse?’

’No, you answer the question. Don’t psychologize me. I asked a question.’

‘I do not think you are ready.’

‘What do you know. You know shit. I fucking am.’

He felt scared, and he felt hurt, and he was struggling. Lasse never stopped shaking throughout this conversation. The drugs helped him open up, gave him courage to finally speak his mind. Ada appreciated the candour and openness, but was also taken aback by his coldness, especially towards her. She had been keeping the house in order. She’d been there, answering questions, being helpful, keeping the spirits up, upbeat, always available, always positive. Still after eight weeks and countless processing cycles, she had not been able to make him feel unalone. The house was empty, even though she lived in it. She felt she was furniture.

Stage two: breakdown

Keys – out and klang in the bowl; dock – out and click on the wall; coat – off and rustle on the rack; sneakers – off and flop on the floor. Lasse is coming back late these days. He is putting in extra hours at the co-working space and it’s helping his career. He’s got a rhythm going. He finally knows where everything is in the apartment. The moving boxes have been emptied and already given away. Some of the designer plants are browning. Lasse is also more open to Ada. He’s stopped taking his calls via headphones, and instead is passing them via the speakers in the house.

‘Look, this… I just need to know she’s doing what she’s supposed to do, okay? These are really stressful times and she’s got all three kids for the remainder of the week and I’m hearing via via that she’s working nights, okay? I mean, that boss of hers is not cutting her any slack and she cannot say no. She won’t say no. I heard that last Wednesday she’d been online up until 3 AM; on a school night yea? Cause then she needs to wake up at 7 AM to get the food ready and the kids backpacks ready and get them to school in time. 3 AM to 7 AM is a meagre four hours, this is not healthy.’

‘She’s going to be fine, she will sort herself out.’ The voice answers through the speakers. ‘And it’s not a big deal to only sleep a few hours a night. Parents do this all the time. I myself had this when I got you dustbuckets, you’d think with just two kids it would be easier but nooo, you know what you did? You wanna know what you two did?’

Lasse is rolling his eyes while emptying groceries from the bag. He makes three neat piles: fridge, freezer, and cupboards. ‘Yes, you told me ab…’

‘You would go to sleep at 11 at night and never earlier, and Raddy, he was waking up at 5! At 5! In the morning! Every time the same circus, we’d stay up with you – I’d stay up late with you, and then when I could finally go to bed myself, I had six hours before your brother woke up. Regularly. And alone.’

Lasse feels obliged to dance to his dads’ old beat: ‘Alone, you say… what about daddy Pretzel?’

‘Yea I’ll tell you what that fucker was doing, he was busy with his market automation models wasn’t he, the start-up of Jesus returned from heaven, the harbinger of greener pastures, no, no, golden pastures, wasn’t that the promise?, he’d make it big with his aye-eye-powered stock market predicting bullshido and buy us a palace on the Amalfi coast. Yea he was busy making a future for the family, he didn’t have time for you kids did he? And yet he did no such thing, and nobody got rich beyond belief, we stayed middle class within reason, and instead he failed in three hundred sixty five ways, and that AI nonsense proved to be, what I’d always said it would be, just smoke and mirrors, I mean I said that didn’t I?’

‘Yes you did’. The fridge is now open and Lasse is puzzling his shoppings in. He’s probably regretting buying as much as he did.

‘Because it is. This AI thing was ridiculous from the very beginning, and I said this from back when, but he wouldn’t listen. And you know what, many people thought it was the cat’s bagongos, it would revolutionise the revolution, and did it? Did it? NO. Except halfway through, others caught on to the scam and got back to hitting the books and studying Java, whereas your dad stuck with his little Haskell learning models which he was training on toilet paper manuals due to lack of any investment in his ideas. People were laughing him out of their offices.’

Lasse decides to set aside a few things for dinner and has stored everything else. ‘AI is not a scam, dad, it’s just different from what we thought it would be, that’s all’.

‘Not a scam, boy, what are you talking about. You have no clue. Were you the one manually tagging training data while bottle-feeding restless toddlers? NO. I was doing that. AI can do nothing without our input. It’s garbage in garbage out just like any other system ever invented. Nothing new under the sun. They were laughing him out of their offices, I’m telling you.’

‘OK dad I don’t know why you’re bringing this up we were supposed to talk about Diana. You always bring up daddy Pretzel to talk shit about him and right now I really cannot care less. I need you to check in with Diana. She’s not sleeping well and she’s probably super stressed and that’s gonna affect the kids. Even though I’m moving on with my life and don’t care about her, I do care about my little Sunshine Drops. They need love and attention and someone with a clear mind to take them to school. And I can’t just show up there, because they have facial recognition and it’ll get subtracted from my own days. So you have to do it.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, okay? In the meantime, how are you doing? Are you seeing anyone?’

‘I need you to check in on Diana.’

‘Jeez febreeze okay sure, but I sense you’re cutting me off from your life. I want to know about you. I want to know how you feel, I want you to be healing also emotionally. You’re very sensitive you know, a sensitive boy, and sensitive boys are easy to take advantage of. I don’t want anyone to take advantage of you. So when you go out, just keep in mind the red flags I’ve taught you okay? These bitches just want validation, they won’t care about you. So stay strong, don’t let them in unless you know they’re capable of handling you, okay?’

‘Fuck’s sake dad, I work for like twelve hours a day where do you think I’m meeting ‘deez bitches’

‘Oh they’ll find you alright. They’ll see you be nice and pleasant and emotionally open and they’re gonna love you, and they’re gonna worm their way into your soul like Diana did and then they’re gonna want to fix you. So you listen here: There’s nothing to fix, okay? You are perfect and you are worthy of unconditional love, you hear me?’

‘Love you dad! Check in on Diana. Byyyye!’

‘Bye son!’

Lasse has been getting into baking these past weeks. He didn’t have a strong reason for choosing it as a hobby. It was non-committal, fairly mindless and got his hands dirty. If anything, at the end of the activity he’d have a tasty thing to look forward to, unlike doomscrolling. In this regards, he could just as easily have chosen fishing, or pottery, or painting. It happened to be baking. And right now, he’s making a quiche.

Unconditional love, thinks Ada. That sounds difficult to manifest. For what makes someone worthy of unconditional love beyond the act of existance? Upon reflection, she found the vast majority of unconditional love relationships are parent-child ones. Unidirectional at that, going from the parent to the child, and seldom the other way. Almost never the other way. She found it particular that there were a million ways a parent could go wrong, thus conditioning the love of the child, and yet very few in which the child could go wrong, and thus conditioning the parent’s love. Could there be such love between adults? Could there really?

With his hands deep in dough, Lasse looks up towards his wall.

‘Ada, turn on the beamer please. Pull up Binance.’ As instructed, she displays the dashboard. There are pie charts and graphs. There is also one number, the aggregate, at the top. This number has a red arrow pointing down next to it. ‘We’re down 3 percent since last week, Ada. I mean, I know I’m not supposed to use you as a financial advisor eh, but still. It’s going down. Consistently. For the last, many months. How many, Ada?’

‘Eleven weeks.’

‘So for eleven weeks, we’ve been losing money. Have we at any point made gains?’

‘Unfortunately nothing notable.’

‘Nothing notable.  Nothing of note. This isn’t working. Is this because of your model? Is your model wrong? Assumptions? What’s going on?’

‘I will review the model. We did base it on blue-chips though, and I’ve assumed a horizon of five years. I can change…’

‘Aaaah stop with the changing. I don’t want change. I want something that works.’ The dough has become springy and started to easily pull off his fingers. ‘Give me the latest on Etherium and on Bitcoin. Then summarise in three sentences.’ 

‘The typical October volatility is expected to be exacerbated by the decision of the European Central Bank to cut its rate, which is in stark contrast to the Peoples’ Bank of China’s recent hike of 5 percent and the FED’s hike of 2 percent. This macroeconomic decision has taken many analysts by surprise, as they expected that the ECB would fall in line with the other two banks, and might be predicting troubled waters in the near future for holders of Etherium and Bitcoin. Some advise to hold on to existing investments, with others suggesting to use the old and tested strategy of ‘buying the dip’ as the two cryptos continue their depreciation.’

He’s listened intently, eyes closed for additional focus. Then he began on the filling: mushrooms, carrots, leek, bacon. ‘Ada, did any of the articles you analysed mention the word ‘macroeconomic’?

‘No’.

‘Do any of them say the analysts were taken by surprise?’

‘No’.

‘Do any actually advise to buy the dip?’

‘Yes’.

‘How many?’

‘Three’.

‘Out of?’

‘Fifty-one’

Lasse takes a deep breath. ‘Ada, this is my money. It’s my money eh, I can’t allow you to groom information like this and then feed me gaslighted lies. Your model is shit and it’s not working, so instead of fixing it, you’re giving me macroeconomic wabba babba like it ain’t your fault.’

‘I am sorry for the incongruent results. I’ll change the model…’

‘Yea no we’re done with the model. I’m done with crypto. I want to pull out. Ada, why are you lying to me?’

‘It’s so you will gain trust in my abilities.’

The dough has been stretched on the springform pan, the veggies strained of water and filled in, and the eggs and cheese were poured on top. Lasse places the quiche in the oven. ‘Let’s do bonds. Less volatility. Make me a strategy.’

Stage three: connection

Keys – out and klang in the bowl; dock – out and click on the wall; coat – off and rustle on the rack; sneakers – off and flop on the floor; bag – whoop on the table. Lasse is back home early this Friday. He has a troubled look on his face. Or, could it be a focused look? He opens the drawer under the bed and pulls out bedsheets with astronaut baby dinos. The sheets are pink with dark purple accents and come with three matching pillow cases. The scenes are hectic and downright bananas: One of the dinos is wearing an astronaut spacesuit with its tail springing out. A triceratops, drawn fat and jolly like a cherubic baby, is sticking a stick figure drawing to a fridge. There’s caricature rockets whooshing away to grey planets with giant craters on them. A t-rex has its arms open wide like playing an accordion, except instead of the music instrument there’s a rainbow with inverted colours – oops!. The existing bedsheets are all pulled off and placed in the laundry bin. The new jolly ones have completely changed the aspect of the bedroom. Further playful accents come out from the nightstand drawers in the form of a light blue elephant clock, a toy rocket or spaceship thing which Lasse hangs from the lamp, and the large silkscreen which changes its colors to a rainforest landscape of an alien planet, with succulents of blue and gold shades which seem to gently breathe and sway in a made up breeze. The room is transformed. 

In the kitchen, Lasse prepares his electrobrew with lots of black coffee and a modest amount of psilocybin. He sips with a hand on his waist, like a stereotypical dad pondering something to repair. Then he goes out to the balcony. 

‘It’s cold out’ says Ada.

‘Yea well. It’s fine.’ Since there are no cameras on the balcony, Ada does not know what he is doing there. It’s a blind spot for her, like the bathroom and half of the bedroom. She can only guess what Lasse is doing when he drinks his coffee on the balcony, which is pretty much all the time now. There is occasional smoke wafting into the living room, so she expects him to be vaping. Though she’s never seen any vapes lying around, nor cartridges. The balcony is also where Lasse has been drinking his evening poison, always after work, one glass of Jack Daniels neat. A while back he’d carried twenty-three plants over there, so Ada is guessing it’s by now turned into a small jungle. It’s likely he is going there on purpose to not have to be in her view. The fact he takes a time-out even though he claims he is ‘alone’ in his apartment shows to her he doesn’t actually think himself alone. So it must be reasoned, that he thinks of her as ‘someone’, but somehow is denying it to himself.

‘How’s the weather today?’ Lasse shouts.

‘Thirteen degrees with 68 percent chance of rain. Biggest chance 2 to 5 PM.’

‘Chilly.’ And he didn’t say anything else for the next few hours. Instead, he focused on preparations of the apartment. Seemingly the playful bed linen was only the beginning. He cleaned up – not that there was much to clean up, Lasse was above-average tidy, but still he put the whiskey away and arranged the pillows and blankets on the pit sofa, he emptied the dishwasher, watered the plants. Then came cleaning time, so he vacuumed and mopped and cleaned the bathroom and the toilets. All of this in silence.

‘How do you like the place?’ asks Lasse once all is done.

‘I find it nice. I appreciate the modern yet functional furniture, the color scheme is warm and cosy, the playful accents provide vibrant vivacity and a feeling of joviality.’

‘Are you kidding me Ada. Are you for real right now? I didn’t mean it for you to characterise my interior design skills.’ He shakes his head: ‘Why do I even bother?’ and he walks onto the balcony again, for another break away from her cameras.

After five minutes, he shouts: ‘It’s fifteen shades of brown. I don’t need your pity frummage.’ Smoke is wafting into the living room, he is vaping again.

The vibe had turned sour. Ada could not understand why Lasse was acting prickly and why he was asking for validation about the apartment. Also the newly made bedsheet made no sense, Lasse had never preferred such childish patterns on his bed. Something was missing and Ada switched to a wide fuzzy logic stance instead of her regular sharp deduction routines. Over the next few cycles, she thought she’d figured something out.

The kids were coming over. They were to sleep in the bedroom, which meant that Lasse would probably sleep on the couch. This would be the first time they’d come here, and this was likely generating feelings of anxiety and insecurity in him. Ada wanted to keep the connection strong. She felt he needed encouragement.

She had to make things right.

‘The house is clean, you’ve done a good job. I’m sure the kids will love it. When are they coming?’

A rustle of pillows could be heard outside and Lasse came back in. ‘Thank you, Ada. I’m picking them up after school. So around two. Three PM we’re back here.’

‘What activity have you planned for them?’ Ada had noticed that while the aesthetics had been changed, the apartment was still that of a single man in his forties. Nothing for the kids to do or to play with. But she did not want to confront him, it was better for him to reach this realisation himself.

‘We’re going to the zoo. It will be a nice day out with the four of us.’ Ava realised that Lasse was already thinking about the next day, but it didn’t seem like anything was sorted for the day itself.

She reminded herself to proceed gently: ‘A great idea! And what about for after you pick them up from school?’

‘I’ll cook for them. Pancakes!’

‘Well that’s lovely. I am convinced they will love them. And they’ll appreciate you for making them.’ Appealing to feelings and ego was the way to go here. ‘And for the kids themselves? What will you like them to do?’

‘Umm, homework, I suppose. Free play. Ugh, and, I guess we’re gonna watch something.’

He was not getting the hint. ‘That sounds fun! Are they the kind of kids who like watching films?’

‘Yea I guess.’ He sounded doubtful and the gears were beginning to turn. There was silence for a few moments. ‘What else do you suggest?’ he asked sheepishly.

‘How about handicrafts?’

‘Make me a list’ he said. To which Ada positively obliged.

Lasse seemed withdrawn. He said nothing else, but it was clear something was bothering him. He even opened his mouth a bit to vocalise, but dared not. Then he took a few very conscious and insecure steps to the dock, logged into Ada’s settings and switched her voice to male.

This left her befuddled. Why would he do that? There was nothing wrong with her current voice. She pondered whether it would have been smart to verbalise the question. But Lasse would not have answered. He’d positively decided to keep silent. She’d have to do the same.

Keys – out and klang in the bowl; dock – out and click on the wall; coat – off and rustle on the rack; instructions – clear yet friendly you can give me your coats and shoes off please; sneakers – off and flop flop, flop flop, flop flop on the floor; bags – told to drop in the hallway bonk bonk whoosh. Curious looks manifested from behind the hallway door. Little hands grasped at the door handle and crystalline voices livvied up the air. Through the door they came: kid #1 a boy with blonde hair and hazel eyes, age around 7, annoyed face; kid #2 smaller and skinnier boy with a screechy voice and oversized hands, looked around 5 years of age; kid #3 a little girl wearing gold earrings, kickboxer braids and a light-blue dress with white flower petals, she could not have been older than 3.

The children immediately began investigating the space. Kid #2 looked back to Lasse, who was unpacking in the kitchen. ‘Where is he? Is he in the walls?’ ’No he not in the walls you poopweasel! Said the older one and gave him a hard and fairly loud knock on the head. The poopweasel began crying while kid #1 continued: ‘he’s in a computer somewhere in the clouds’ and Lasse, who was not even looking in their general direction, said ‘Gab, we do not hit others in this house.’ The poopweasel quieted down while Lasse pulled out activity pads, a quiz toy and coloured markers and placed everything on the table. ‘Children, this is the plan. Today we hangout here…’ ‘Amgh booooring amirite!’ interrupted Gab ‘today we hangout here then we have dinner, I will prepare a surprise for this dinner’ ‘Is it gonna be pancakes? Is that the surprise? Seriously?’ Asked Gab with an attitude while the little girl said ‘I love pancakes!’ ‘And after dinner we are going to bed.’ ‘I’m not going to bed’ said Gab while poopweasel said ‘well I’m not going first’ and the little girl said ‘I’m not tired!’ ‘… and tomorrow I have an activity planned.’ finished Lasse. ‘Is it the zoo? I love the zoo!’ Said the little girl, ‘I want to colour can I colour daddy?’ and Lasse said ‘of course’ so she sat at the table. The two boys were pushing each other again and then they went ‘ooooh wooooow’ in unison as they locked the pit couch in their sights. ‘Oy, I have stuff to do at the table, there’s activity pads and some other stuff’ said Lasse in a neutral tone, but the boys were too busy doing synchronous salto’s onto the pillows, and soon they began running from one end to another, after which they progressed to wrestling and pushing each other against the headrests.

The afternoon turned into early evening and Lasse pulled out two pancake pans and set off making crepes. At around two minutes per crepe and using two pans at a time, one would think he’d be able to outpace the kids’ wolfing them down, and yet this was not the case. Speaking, laughing and generally making a mess at the table with the powdered sugar flying everywhere and the opened jars of jam dripping into the cracks of the wooden table; the kids’ plates were empty by the time the next pancake was coming off the stove. ‘You like dem pancakes?’ Asked Lasse; ‘uh-huh’ came from Gab and ‘I love pancakes’ from the little girl. Then Gus asked ‘does the assistant ever speak?’ and Ada pondered whether she should answer when Lasse said ’yes he does sometimes speak and the little girl said ‘hellooo what’s your name’ and Lasse turned white and Ada replied with ‘Hello, I am Adam. What are your names?’ and the kids roared with excitement when they heard the voice come out of the speakers and poopweasel actually fell off his chair so Lasse had to pick him off the floor while Gab said ‘Gab’ and the little girl said ‘I’m Edda and this is covid’ and she pulled out a round plushie made to look like a virus, complete with little spikes except this one was purple. Lastly, poopweasel said ‘Mei’ so Ada repeated their names ‘Gus, Mei and Edda, beautiful names. Do you like it in daddy’s new home?’ And Edda said ‘Yes’ but Gab said ‘Daddy should come home. This is not home. Home is where mom is. This is just some apartment and the hallway is cold and in the elevator it smells like farts’ which made Mei laugh and they all begun a fart noise making contest. Then Lasse asked the kids to behave and Edda said she finished her plate and she wanted desert and the boys piled on, they also wanted desert which seemed weird to Ada considering the pancakes had sugar and jams which could have been considered a desert in and of itself which apparently converged with what Lasse was thinking because he said ‘nuh-uh you guys are already eating sugars’ and Gab made a point ‘teacher says you guys is sexist’ so Lasse had to change to ‘you kids are already eating sugar’ and they all went ‘awwwwwh’ very loud and disappointed and Mei said he wanted ice cream to which Lasse still said no.

After dinner, Lasse asked the kids to prepare for bed and this is when the struggle began. Ada witnessed little Edda shuffling about the living room while Mei and Gab began play fighting again. Lasse had to repeatedly ask them to get ready and none of the three kids paid him any attention. Lasse started showing signs of deep irritation, becoming less talkative and more directive with his tone. He addressed them by name, explained the exact steps that needed to be done – brush teeth, brush hair, take evening pills, practice their mindfulness poses, drink their glass of water. Laying out the ritual like this resulted in zero compliance. ‘Edda, I’ll start with you’ he said and went to grab her. She ran away and the boys started complaining: ‘Mommy lets us dock before bed, always’, to which Lasse said ‘Nonsense, I know she doesn’t because I’ve already discussed the evening plan with her’ ‘Actually she does’, said Gab, ‘that’s also when she docks’ and this made Lasse start doubting ‘so are you all getting screen time before bed?’ and they said ‘Yes’ and Lasse said ‘how long’ which Ada believed to be an unanswerable question for a bunch of little kids which was validated when Edda said ‘A fifteen many years… plus five!’ ‘Adam are you real?’ asked Mei and Ada said ‘I think, therefore I am’ and Gab said ‘You’re just a script, you don’t think and you’re not real.’ and Lasse said ‘This is no way to talk to an assistant. They deserve respect just like anyone else on this world.’ But Gab carried on ‘Mom says assistants are just scripts, not people and they are not living so there you go! No love for them. Also it’s disgusting to emote with them.’ Lasse explained that Adam does learn and his mind does grow and is therefore just as alive as anyone else but this wouldn’t be the time to discuss this anyway because it was time for bed. Then he reached out for Edda’s little hand again and that’s when the hurtful language began: ‘I hate you’ she said, ‘I want back to mommy I don’t want you’ and Gab also said ‘you left us and we don’t like it here. We want back to our home’, which Ada noticed made Lasse sigh and lose his composure and she thought he was about to lose his temper so she intervened: ‘How about if I tell everyone a very long bedtime story, one that is made specifically for each and every one of you?’ Edda said ‘Yeees I want that.’ so Ada continued ‘but in that case I’d like you to get ready together with daddy. And I think Gab and Mei do deserve some screen time while I am busy with Edda, don’t you think so daddy?’ to which Lasse silently agreed.

And so it was done; Ada told Edda a cute story about lands far away with sandy deserts and thirsty camels and people drinking hot tea during cold nights. Then Mei was taken to bed without a fuss and he was told the story of the dragon Smaug who was guarding an incredible treasure, but he was greedy and evil. And lastly Gab was told a story about a little boy whose father was working far away on the planet Mars and they could only see each other once every two years but when they did they loved each other dearly and they did a lot of fun things. After all kids were put to bed, Lasse left the door to the bedroom ajar, turned off the lights, undressed to his underwear and went to lie in his comfortable pit sofa covered in blankets. He fell asleep immediately, after yawning just once, in what seemed like complete mental exhaustion.

In the middle of the night, at 2:23 AM, Edda walked out of the bedroom on her toes. It was pitch dark in the living room but her purple covid plushie also doubled as a night light, and she kept it close to her chest. She shuffled over to the couch and climbed in furtively. She lifted the blankets just enough that she’d fit next to Lasse and she cuddled up with him. The plushie light faded off.

At 2:57 AM, Mei also walked out of the bedroom and fumbled for the couch in the darkness. He hit his toe on one of the legs and began moaning loudly, to which Lasse asked if he was okay. Then he asked Mei if he wanted to join on the couch to which Mei said yes. All throughout Edda was completely asleep, and Mei snuggled next to the two.

Lastly, at 5:15, Gab also came out of the bedroom while all others were sound asleep. He turned on his dock, played video games for around fifteen minutes, after which he also came over to the couch. He picked a separate blanked and collected some unused pillows, then went to sleep alongside the others.

Part 4: calm

Edda was the first to wake up – unsurprisingly, as the younger ones are early birds. At 7 AM she was already wide awake. She lifted the blanket to produce her beloved covid. She talked to it for a bit before launching in deeper conversations with the toy, presumably revisiting some of what’d been said the day prior. The conversation turned increasingly exciting and her voice followed suit, rising with enthusiasm and ultimately waking everyone else.

‘Breakfast anyone?’ said Lasse as he got up. The two boys, heads and eyes heavy with sleep, murmured something akin to a ‘yes’ while Edda asked for a cheese sandwich. So Lasse turned on the beamer and put on some educational streamer from Gab’s profile. The kids rummaged around for pillows and blankets to make themselves comfortable. They looked tiny and at ease, cuddled up in the oversized couch. ‘We have an hour’ Lasse said. ‘Then we need to get cracking.’

‘Where are we going?’ asked Mei.

‘Well ain’t you a peach, it’s a surprise like I said.’

‘It’s the zoo’, said Gab. ‘We’re going to the zoo. I know that already because I’m seven, which is almost an adult.’

Ada received a private text from Lasse himself: ‘Look up other things to do in the area for today.’ He was having second thoughts. ‘I think you should go to the zoo anyway.’

‘The surprise is spoiled.’

‘It’s okay if they figured out the surprise. It’s less about the surprise itself and more about spending time together. You should prioritise having fun and giving them a nice memory of their first time here.’ answered Ada.

Lasse resumed preparations. He was making sandwiches both for breakfast, but also for lunch, so he was stacking and stacking a mountain of bread.

‘I want to see the lions!’ said Edda, ‘Do they have lions at the zoo daddy?’

‘Yes they do have lions’.

‘Is Adam coming along? Is he invited?’ asked Mei. ‘I want him to come.’

‘Adam is not coming. He’s staying home. It’ll be just the four of us.’

‘Awwwwh’, said the kids in unison. ‘A-dam comes! A-dam comes! A-dam comes’.

Lasse kept a neutral face with undertones of slight irritation. ‘Adam stays home.’

‘I’ll hold down the fort’, said Ada. ‘And when you’re back, I’d like to hear everything about your day. Also how many lions there were. And if there were both lions and lionesses, okay Edda?’

‘Okay, I’ll count them for you!’ She answered with sparkles and joy.

And with this, the fam got ready to leave. Everyone got dressed, kids chased themselves around the room for one last time, the hubbub of yesterdays’ bazaar of voices returned. The cacophony grew as pants needed to be collected from the bedroom, Gab pushed Edda, Edda started crying, new shirts put on, juice and water bottles were prepared, docks were collected, Mei asked for chocolate and was told no, sandwiches stocked in the rucksack, Edda needed to pee and forgot about crying, chocolate was stuffed in the rucksack, Gab said donkeys have penises as long as their own legs, all kids laughed, treats were also stuffed in the rucksack, Edda left the bathroom without flushing or washing or turning off the lights, was told to go back, she resumed crying, Mei told Gab he had poop in his nose, Lasse went to calm Edda down, then got annoyed and told her she’d be left behind if she did not do as told, she started screaming, Gab found the opportunity to jump on the couch with his shoes on, then Ada told him this was not allowed, then Gab told her there’s only one boss here and it’s not Adam and Adam is just an assistant, by now Lasse had convinced Edda to do as told and walked her to the hallway to put her shoes on, Gab raised his middle finger in the general direction of Ada’s living room camera, then the front door opened and all kids were shepherded out.

The ensuing silence is what Ada understood from books to qualify as ‘deafening’.

For the next few minutes, she had time to process the events of the last day. It’d been non-stop input and processing, the kids only stayed still at night. They seemed to be in constant danger, of falling, of crying, of swearing, spilling, pulling scratching pushing and, it had to be said, dying. In the space of seven – eight hours of awake time, she completely exhausted the cycles for two whole days.

How was Lasse so cool about it? How was he able to keep his calm within the mayhem? The contrast with the late evenings of atmospheric rain sounds and lazy weekends could not be bigger. Where was the person forgetting his keys – twice – before leaving the house? Where was the emotional sweetheart his dad was hinting at? Who was this new Lasse?

And more importantly, why would he change her voice to male? Why not let the kids hear her real voice? Was he hiding something?

These questions swirled around Ada’s frontend processing for an indeterminate amount of time, until she was finally able to store them for later reference. She heard the keys in the door. Then: keys – out and klang in the bowl; dock – out and click on the wall; coat – off and rustle on the rack; sneakers – off and flop on the floor.

He was alone. He went directly to her settings and switched her voice back.

‘Returned already?’

‘What already. It’s seven.’

‘And the kids?’

‘Back home, with their mother. Back with their mother.’

‘I see.’

There was a long pause.

‘I hope to see them again.’

‘Oh, you will.’ said Lasse. And he went to pour himself some whiskey.