Time Slips On

Annie fidgeted in her hoverchair. The backrest molded to her spine for maximum comfort but that nagging phantom discomfort from her useless legs never really went away. She wondered what was taking her assistant so long to return with the tea she had requested. She blinked, looking down and to the right to check the time. The small glowing numbers floated there in her vision—her wrinkled brow furrowed in confusion at the numbers. Time seemed to be slipping for her lately, more so than usual. Minutes stretched out, feeling impossibly long. Drumming her fingers on the polished surface of her desk she called out to her assistant, “Dash! Fetch me my little black book.”

The robot’s egg-shaped head swiveled around the corner, eyes glowing purple—was that to indicate compliance? Annie could not remember. The face was smooth and white with the exception of a seam running vertically down the middle of its head. The point of the egg served as a chin, “Yes Miss Ambrose. Which little black book?”

Annie’s shoulders tensed, “The black book. My photo album.”

“Ah. Yes. Where is it ma’am?” Dash’s melodic voice was meant to sound cheerful and soothing. Annie wasn’t so sure.

She squinted in displeasure, “On my nightstand of course. Please retrieve it immediately. And where is my tea?”

The head of the robot stretched out of her office towards her bedroom. Simultaneously, its Mickey Mouse shaped hands with coiling arms carefully placed a teacup and saucer at the center of her desk. A replica of bone china that would have been hand painted with gold had it been authentic. The water had not even begun to change colour. This realization only added to Annie’s frustration. Elderly, disabled and now I’m also losing my grip on reality.

She watched as Dash’s spherical body tottered after its outstretched head, Go-Go-Gadget arms shrinking to be close at its sides. When Dash wasn’t stretching its limbs all around the apartment the robot was barely as tall as her desk. Child-size to match its naïve personality. Annie still found it unsettling despite the cartoonish design. The robot had been an unexpected gift from her great niece Raven. She couldn’t very well return it and reprogramming an AI bordered much too close to murder for Annie’s comfort.

Raven had assured her the AI was smart enough to program itself in just a few short weeks. For Annie though, when minutes seemed to stretch into hours, everything felt far too long. Far too slow. This feeling of time stretching was compounded by the immediacy of virtual reality. Perhaps that was also the reason for the time slippages Annie reasoned, unwilling to admit it could simply be the frailty of age.

She wrapped her hands around the cup of tea, the warmth soothing inflamed joints. Annie was presently on sabbatical from teaching ancient history. At least, that was what she was calling it. More likely it would be a segue into early retirement. Much of her time these last couple weeks had been spent in virtual reality, filling blank white space with text as she worked on her new book. She would lose herself for hours, the words wrapping around her as she thought them. Annie slipped back into that space for a moment as she impatiently waited for the robot.

“Looking far enough into the past we find that humans once considered themselves the only superior intelligence. From the 18th to the 20th century, it was specifically male humans largely of European descent. Other races, sexes, and animals were regarded as inferior. The notion that animals did not have feelings, despite being utterly ridiculous today was widely accepted. It could be considered a certain irony now that a female elephant is president of the galactic council. Despite this leap through time and space, the human body remains frail in its unaltered form.”

“To the universe, a thousand years is but a speck of dust,” She said, the words immediately appearing as Annie spoke them.

“Miss Ambrose?”

Annie flinched, blinking her way back to reality. Hot tea dripped onto her thin spindly legs. Useless and unfeeling. The robot stood beside her hoverchair; limbs coiled closely to its body. Dash held the little black book on the palm of its hand.

“Yes, very good Dash,” she took the book, leisurely flipping through the postcards tucked into plastic protective sleeves. Each one was of a place that had once existed on earth, back before AI and hoverchairs. Incredibly antiquated, they were her most prized possessions—much more so than the $20,000 robot that stood before her. She studied the stamps, some of them had come from different galaxies, traveling light years to end up in her hands. Others had been freshly printed and hand delivered by her great niece, Raven. The messages were usually brief, just simple updates about health, the weather, or a change in address. Annie came to the most recent postcard, needing to formulate some semblance of time since her last conversation with Raven.

“May I return to my duties ma’am?” Dash asked, eyes glowing green now. Annie nodded, already blinking her way through her list of contacts on her heads-up display. The list of names scrolled to Raven, Taffy barking in excitement as Annie greeted them both. Raven was already mid-sentence—no hello, how are you with her.

“Time is relative,” she was saying, “Don’t you think grandma?”

Annie laughed despite herself, “Goodness Raven. Haven’t I told you not to call me that?”

“Mmhmm, but… You know… You are sitting in your office full of old books. Old paper books. Anyone that does that must be a grandma.”

“Or a historian?”

“An old historian then.”

Annie sighed in resignation, “Yes. An old historian making records as time slips on.”