I, Wilhelm

The first three days dragged by like a cinderblock on Nadia’s brain. She wasn’t sure why she found it so hard compared to previous observations, but she did. She suspected that the strange mix of regimen and no regimen at all added to the numbness of it. But Joan’s complete lack of interaction was the icing on the cake. She didn’t like small talk, out loud observations and any questions about her life were met with a blank stare. There were only so many wedding plans Nadia could make in silence before she found herself starting at the walls and imagining what it might feel like to climb them.

Every day started the same - way too early. The baby would wake, typically at midnight. Alice would stumble from the bed, carefully to leave the room quietly, rush to feed the baby, and spend the rest of the night between the couch the bed. So far Nadia noted that she had slept less than four hours un-interrupted sleep on average.

At 6 0’clock her husband would get up, make his breakfast and leave for work. Occasionally he would comment on how badly he he had slept. Alice was often completely silent during this morning routine, either hunched on the couch feeding the baby or slowly working her way through cleaning the kitchen. The same pattern would continue for the rest of the day; the baby would cry, feed, eventually sleep and Alice would try and clean and organise as best she could. Then the baby would wake, cry and the whole routine repeated. Throughout all of it the robot only moved it’s head, otherwise standing frozen in the corner of the kitchen. Most of the time Alice wouldn’t even glance at it, but several times in the evening she would notice it’s green eyes glowing at her. She stared blankly back. Nadia found it unnerving.

The evenings were just as dull. Alice’s husband would return, grimace through the meal Alice had made - which was admittedly, not spectacular - sit down to mark homework before they would both go to sleep at 9. Their conversation were short and factual, with a lie sprinkled in every now and then. How was your day? Did anything interesting happen? Did you like the meal I made?

In her rest hours Joan would sleep quietly in her bunk. She never browsed the allowed books, doodled, wrote or engaged in any way. The closest they every seemed to get to a conversation was when she would go into the bathroom to phone her son, and even then, all Nadia could ever hear were garbled muffles. It was like working with a ghost.