Bella

My husband Mark couldn't wait to get it installed, but I found Bella creepy. When he was ordering it, I asked "why do all these robots have female names? Is it really man's greatest dream to have a woman serve you? It’s the patriarchy you know?"
"You know you can change Alexa's voice to be male, have any wake up word you like?" He retorted, "it’s the same with Bella". So I did, and Alexa became "Computer" it made me feel slightly more like Captain Janeway, except where was my exciting deep space mission? and Bella remained Bella. 'She'. It. Was sleek, white, humanoid, about 5ft tall and had friendly little blue, glowing LEDs. Not like eyes, not like a face, but sort of set under the rim of the face plate that illuminated where a face would be in the dark. But no features, blank. Insert expression here, I thought. 

"It’s a bit of a disappointment" I said after a few weeks, once the initial excitement had died down. All this sci-fi we watch, waiting for the future - Starfleet, intergalactic travel, sexy aliens, emotive androids; and we have a faceless she-bot that picks up the kids dirty socks and puts books back on the shelves. I can do those things, and faster. I feel kind of lazy leaving the mess for her". 
"The house has never looked tidier, and we don't have to lift a finger" Mark countered "Bella is amazing! We're freed up, we can just live, reach our full potential you know, and she does all the house stuff, no more hoovering or toilet scrubbing for me!". 
"If she were sentient she'd be miffed. This is basically slavery" I mused getting up close and examining her face plate. Not an inkling of anything but blank machine. She was shiny, my face reflected back to me this close. Pensive and sceptical, distorted.
"Just think of her like a glorified dishwasher" Mark said, and I tried to, I did.

But a dishwasher doesn't restock your fridge, you don’t have to say excuse me to a dishwasher so it moves out of the way of a kitchen draw, or brush past it in the hallway. And weirdly you don't feel guilty that the dishwasher does its job. I mean it just sits under your counter and you take it for granted, but it’s not like its IN your presence. It’s not watering your garden and mowing your lawn while you have your feet up in a hammock, with a smutty novel and a beer. Like Mark was that day. I tried talking to him about it. His response? “You don’t have to say excuse me or thank you, she’s a machine. Just tell her to move and forget about it.”

The thing about having a 5ft Bella in your house that the adverts don't show, of course, is where you will store it. While you're tucked up in bed you don't want it trundling around the house waking you up, scrubbing the hob and wiping down work surfaces etc. It’s quite large, so it sits on the sofa to charge. I mean its practical I guess, we don't have the cupboard space to put her away. That would feel wrong to me anyway. But if you come downstairs at 1am to get something for your headache, and find Bella sitting motionless on the sofa, bathed in moonlight... you can't help but do a double take and feel your heartbeat kick up a notch. This thing lives in our house! I think - Lives?! Is her head inclined towards the skylight slightly? Can she perceive the light? Is she bored, sad... resentful? I shook my head, don't be silly its cameras and AI, she's plotted our entire house and she knows our tasks and where to put things to straighten up and clean. She's not 'in there' , there is no 'she', just circuits and routines. All the same I walked over to her. The LEDs glowed purple now, not blue, sleepy, calming. "probably energy saving mode" I mumbled. Her head swivelled towards me fast and the LEDs flashed yellow. I jumped right out my skin and went back to bed shaken, sleeping fitfully. Does she really just sit on the sofa all night? What does it mean to be alive?

In the morning I slept in and came downstairs to find Bella cooking the kids pancakes for breakfast. Thats my thing. No one had woken me. "They're SO good mummy! The BEST". Fine, whatever, kids are easily pleased. They haven't noticed the joy of the ritual is robbed from me. Neither should they, I swallow my pettiness. 

"Bella packed my school bag!" 
“Bella, pour me a wine.”
"Bella, find my reading book please?" 
“Bella, run me a bath.”
"Piggy back me to bed Bella! Story mode!"
"See you later Bella! See you mum."

I spoke to my friend Gen about it. “It’s weird I feel redundant. I mean, it’s not like I liked tidying up, or cooking or gardening particularly. But I tried you know? and I had things to talk about, and plan, and I was useful. I feel at a loose end all the time! where’s my value? Does that sound too dramatic? I actually think the robot’s a better mum than me!” I laughed. Gens advise was to boss it like a man. “Men have been doing this shit for years” she said. “Turn up to the school play with no prep, enjoy the meal it cooked, you read the smut and drink the beer, have it bring YOU tea in bed!”  She advised with a smirk. Half arse life for a while, you might enjoy yourself. Of course, Gen had a Bella on order. Everyone did.  

 I spoke to Mark the next day and insisted that its presence in our house was not a benefit. "She's under foot all the time" I complained. "She's makes me feel uncomfortable. We’ve lost sight of what it means to be human. Let's get our money back" I pleaded "there’s a 100 day guarantee as long as we haven't damaged it. We could go back to how it was. Self-sufficient, connected, grounded! I don’t know… just REAL life " While I pleaded my case Bella folded laundry, her back to us, unflinching and apparently unhearing.

"Rather than send her back, let's deactivate her for a week" Mark bargained. "When you realise how much she does for us, you'll change your mind I'm sure. Personally, I don't want to go back to toil and drudgery, it’s the 21st Century! This is our utopian revolution!" I agreed and he said he'd switch her off, maybe I just needed to buy some time, to convince him. But when I came home that night I found Mark half drunk, the remains of his favourite meal waiting for Bella to clear away, while she massaged his shoulders and played his favourite music. “Did you know she could do this?” He asked. He was relaxed and unburdened, smiling; and he’d never been less attractive to me. A pig in a trough, weakened by weeks of easy days, growing entitlement and greedy. I headed up to bed and when I woke alone, I snuck back downstairs to find him sitting on the sofa with Bella. Her purple face plate, bathed in that same moonlight. He apologised. “Theres just something so comforting about her right? She’ll do anything for you”.
“The word’s subservient”. I said and headed back upstairs.

 I stared at the ceiling. I’m just not sure how to navigate this new family dynamic.  What was this thing? Is it an inanimate object? Or is it a she? An entity? and if so, we were cycling between treating it like shit and a much loved family member.  Sure Bella made my life easier, but in an insidious way. She also removed all the… the clutter that anchored me. The trying, frustration, elation, achievement, connection even! I was competing with her for my family’s time for god sake!  I was tired of fighting the whole situation. If I felt as free as Mark, what would I do? Not all his self-indulgent crap. What was I for?! What was humanity for?

I thought about Starfleet and The United Federation of Planets, exploration and self-improvement… "Computer - what are some fullfilling hobbies?" ... So I looked to the arts. I knit, I painted, I tried pottery and I settled on Flash Fiction. Bella is rubbing a knot out of my shoulder right now while I type this. Perhaps she’s reading it over my shoulder, perhaps she’s just circuits and sub-routines. Either way, there’s no way back.