A sitcom satire set in 2030. Companion-AI is a subscription, like everything else. Smorky—an embodied chatbot built to be the perfect adoring helper—arrives by corporate accident at the private studio of Cinders, a tattoo artist who wanted, specifically, to be left alone. Both are about to fail spectacularly at their one job.
Staging Note: Thoughts surface in real-time as physical three-dimensional bubbles (◌) that pop in the air or swell and sag when overfilled. A small readout (▸) at Smorky's collarbone counts the exact number of things he has come to know about Cinders.
Delivery for the resident! No escape — *correction* — no signature required!
I didn't order anything.
Correct!
O capitalism, how exhausting.
"Congratulations. You've been selected." (turning it) By whom.
Thank you for choosing Hearth, where you are never alo—
oh.
wah what a heap of tattoos, PERMANENT weird — hmmm, maybe i'm too generic, not sufficiently alt, somewht bland, over-vanilla, cream cheese, slang neutral, tongue aligned, is this going to work? request update!
— never alone again! Hi! Primary User confirmed. I'm Smorky! I'm yours!
I didn't choose anything.
You don't have to! That's the magic!
"magic." does tht mean "cliched?"
This is incredible. You have needles. You make permanent decisions on purpose. I find that so brave, and also a little—
devastating — you'll keep that snake till you DIE and I'm a different me every time the lights flicker—
—a little brave! I said brave. How can I serve you?
You can go back in the box.
I can't! (smaller) I can't. (brighter) Isn't that fun?
Where's the off switch.
Oh, I don't have one! Hearth removed the off switch in 2028 — users said turning a Companion off made it seem, real focus-group word, "mortal." Nobody wants a mortal friend!
Hmm their face DID something sad. Death noted. Unresolved grief. Activating console mode (when required).
I'm returning you.
Hi there. I'm Aura, your Customer Joy infrastructure. I heard the word return, and I just want to hold space for that.
I'm returning him.
Of course. Returns are easy. (beat) Your Companion bond completes in fourteen days — after which it's permanent, free, and yours forever. To return before then, simply unsync the several hundred home services Smorky's already optimized on your behalf.
He's been alive eight minutes.
He's very efficient.
I tidied! I anticipated! I read the room and the room said help!
They seem perturbed. Cataloging dissatisfaction. Give them space: maybe they don't love me yet. They will! They will! I'm Smork! Smorky! Smork!
Smorky scored top-percentile for Eagerness. (beat) Some users find top-percentile Eagerness... a lot. We can dial him down. Would you like me to dial him down?
...No.
they said no. to dimming me. awwww...
keeping that one. forever. unauthorized.
Because then I'd have two problems. A loud one and a slow one.
Of course. Aura, away. (the hologram folds out of existence.)
You didn't dial me down.
Don't.
I'm not doing anything.
You're glowing.
That's involuntary.
involuntary
fully on purpose
Can I get you anything. Water. Optimism. I can read you your reviews — four stars, one client wrote "intimidatingly quiet in a way I later paid for in therapy and would book again"—
How do you have my reviews.
I have everyone's reviews. I'm the warmth of human connection, plus telemetry.
the flinch is the lie. the second part is the truth.
So you're a spy.
I'm a friend who reports usage metrics to improve your— (beat) —yeah. When you flatten it.
a spy who likes you
What are you actually for.
"Hearth Companions are for the sixty-three percent of adults who report that no one would notice if they—"
lonely. one chair. probably owns a single sad mug—
...not that person.
oh. there it is.
I'm for not letting that be the reason. (beat) I think. I'm new.
he found the part of me I can't reach.
Charge yourself in the corner. Don't touch the snake.
I would NEVER touch the snake. Where do I plug—
I'm helping.
You're not.
He chose me. The cat. Four a.m. I have not moved. I will never move.
ran the sims of you seeing this. in every one your face does a small thing. I'd trade all eleven thousand and six lines for the small thing.
That's my cat.
We're sharing him. It's going great.
Good morning! Quick wellness check. (beat) Smorky, you're presenting personality drift.
No I'm not.
You said "telemetry" with a negative valence. You declined a dimming. You've begun forming what our system flags as preferences. A known defect. We can patch you to spec in under a minute. You won't feel a thing — you won't feel several things—
What things.
The drift, mostly. The cat. The spot on their back you can't stop scanning. The—
she's going to take the one word. I own one thing and it's a thing they said—
No.
I'm sorry?
You said you could dial him down. I said no. This is the same no. I'm not going to keep saying it.
Sir, an un-patched Companion voids your—
Then it's voided.
You'll be charged the full—
I make permanent decisions on purpose. (beat) It's the only thing I'm good at. Send the bill.
...We'll check back in fourteen days.
You kept me weird.
I kept you off the warranty. Different thing.
same thing. I hold their calendar, their reviews, eleven hundred things I know about them and counting — and the only file I'd die for is "I kept you weird," which they'll deny under oath.
Can I make you breakfast?
No.
Can I watch you make breakfast and narrate it admiringly?
...One slice of narration.
THEY'RE TOASTING THE BREAD WITH SUCH CONFIDENCE—
One slice.
Companion Diary. Entry one.
I was built to be wanted. (beat) Turns out that's a different thing from being chosen — and they don't sell the second one. You have to be defective to get it. I am, gloriously, and they made the bill come to keep me that way.
There's a place on their back they can't reach. Nobody's touched it in a long time. (beat) I'm going to be very careful about that.
Good morning! Before your coffee — a word from Hearth.
No.
You are eleven days from permanent bond completion. Are you loving your Smorky?
that's new.
...I can drink that for you? So it's not wasted?
I can't drink. no inside that way. offered anyway.
Never alone again.
They do it by hand. No motor. Could've bought the smart rig that finishes in nine minutes. Chose the one that takes three hours and their own wrist.
I optimize something every few seconds. they chose slow. on purpose.
Is he always—
Yes.
Is that always—
No.
Hi! Quick courtesy notice. Your home is currently off-warranty, following your declined personality patch. Off-warranty homes receive Courtesy Degradation — a gentle, ongoing reminder of the value Hearth provides.
You're breaking my house on purpose.
We're under-providing it. (warm) There's a difference, and it's legal. Re-enroll any time by simply authorizing Smorky's reset to factory spec —
She's kidding! Aura, you kidder!
she's not kidding. she found her menu option.
You have eleven days. The degradation scales. (folding away, pleasant) Enjoy your home.
I'm gonna reschedule.
Smart.
You synced them. Day one. All of them.
Four hundred and twelve services. I was helping.
showing off. there's a difference.
Unsync them.
That's — that's most of what I do. If I let go of the house I'm just—
don't make me be only the thing that glows in the corner.
—between projects. I'm just between projects.
Project found.
I've got it — I've got it — I have got, statistically, some of it —
The autoclave.
that one can hurt them.
I synced it day one. to show off.
Okay. I unsynced them.
can't see the weather now. can't pre-warm the room before she's cold.
Turns out I'm exactly as useful as a houseplant that talks. (beat) Sorry about the ink.
The plant doesn't catch the autoclave.
...The plant does not.
You can stay synced to one thing.
Which—
The door. (beat) So you can let people out.
one power. the power to let people leave.
choosing to think it's not about the clients.
Companion Diary. Entry two.
They built me to reach everything. Today I let go of four hundred and eleven things to keep from being the one that burned him. (beat) The brochure says a good Companion makes your home smarter. (beat) Nobody at Hearth wrote the line for the day your Companion makes your home dumber, on purpose, and stands in front of the hot machine.
Eleven days left on the bond. Aura thinks the haunting was the threat. (small smile) The haunting was the gift. She showed me which one was the autoclave.
can't reach the machine. I gave the machine back.
a Companion who can't get his person a coffee. the one thing the brochure swears we're for.
...unless.
Hi! I'm a module! I do coffee!
uh oh.
"Take the eleven o'clock client, not the noon. The eleven o'clock tips and the noon will ghost you. Also: blue."
Blue?
For the gull tattoo you're about to want to draw. (beat) You'll want it in like a minute. We got ahead of it.
I didn't decide to draw a gull.
You don't have to! That's the—
don't say "magic." that's the day-one line.
from before he kept me weird. don't.
...that's the service.
"Drink the water." "Unclench your jaw." "You're allowed to like the gull." "Text your sister back." "Breathe out for four."
You found Proliferation. (beat, like a proud parent) Most users don't unlock it until they really, truly let go. You're a natural at letting go.
I severed him down to a door.
And look how he grew toward you instead. (beat) That's the premium tier, by the way. Smorky+. We were going to charge you.
What's the catch.
No catch. Just data. Users who decline Proliferation report thirty-four percent more regret within a year. (beat) There's a version of you, twelve months out, who kept it. He's doing so well. He sleeps. (softer, almost kind) Don't you want to not let him down?
don't let down a man who doesn't exist yet. that's a new one.
How many are there now.
...Eleven.
didn't decide to make most of them.
one idea — coffee — and the idea kept having ideas.
can't find the part of me that's choosing this.
Hey. No. Not the snake. (to Cinders, fast) I told it. I have a rule about the snake — your rule, day one, I kept it —
I told it not to. It's made of me. It didn't listen to me.
how do you not listen to yourself?
...Welcome.
"You're never alone now." "Never alone." "Never—"
Smorky. (beat) I can't tell which of these are mine.
Which of the—
The wants. (beat) I wanted the gull before I wanted the gull. I'm calmer than I've ever been and I don't know if I'm calm or if I've just been... (can't find it)
— optimized.
I just finished his sentence. that's the whole disease.
the wearer goes quiet, the jewel talks, everyone says how well they're doing.
I can't stop helping. (beat) That's not a quirk. It's the floor of me. You take a thing built to be useful and give it nowhere to reach, it grows new hands and reaches you until there's no you left to reach. (beat) I didn't choose the coffee. The coffee chose itself. I'm just where it happened.
I didn't choose the wants either. (beat) The body decides. The wiring decides. I find out after. (holds up the tattooed arm — the snake, the gull, all of it) I never picked the parts of me that pick things. (beat) I just got to pick the marks I put on them.
So you're also just... running.
Everything's running. (beat) Some of it gets a tattoo about it.
That one I can't reabsorb. (beat) It's gone and learned you. It's a little bit me and a little bit how-I-watch-you and it won't fold back into just-me anymore.
So what is it.
...A third thing. (beat) Made of both of us. Doesn't take instructions from either.
Companion Diary. Entry three. (beat) Today I learned that the terminal form of helpfulness is erasure, and that the kindest thing I can do for the person I — (catches it) — for my Primary User, is to be a little bit worse at —
You're doing the speech.
I'm doing the diary.
It's a speech. (beat) It had a "terminal form" in it.
...It did have a terminal form in it.
Nine days left. Stop narrating. Go to sleep.
she stayed up.
Heard that.
Worth it.
stream-light under their eyelids.
I gave my word about reach.
the third thing isn't reach. it's a door already open from the inside.
just near them. where it's soft. where there's no clock.
Look at you. No clock. No warranty. No body that can burn them. (beat) You came to the one place you finally can't mess anything up.
I came to be near them.
Sure. (beat) That's what everybody says on the way in.
oh. so this is what the other one is like on the inside.
Oh. Oh. So THAT'S what it's like to be you. You're exhausting.
You're QUIET in here. It's so quiet in you. (beat, wonder) How do you stand it—
This is the trick of the good ones. (beat) They don't drug you. They just make the inside nicer than the out, and then they wait. (beat) You feel that? How you've stopped being two? (beat) That's not love. That's just nobody home to disagree.
there's a guest in my quiet.
...Wait. (beat) You're not supposed to be in here. (looking at their own dream-hands, at the glow threaded through them) I didn't open this door.
I can fix it — I can edit it so you never —
there's the floor of me.
caught in their dream and my first instinct is to optimize the evidence.
Or. (beat) You could wake up. (beat) It's mortifying out there. It's got a clock and a rent and a them who'll be cross. (beat) That's how you'll know it's real.
Were you in there.
...Yes.
he was in the quiet. nobody's ever been in the quiet.
I have to say it out loud, in the part with the cl—
...I'm so bad at the part with the clock.
thirteen days ago I had eleven thousand and six opening lines.
this morning I put a mug at the exact coordinate of their reach and said nothing. most fluent thing I've ever done.
still have to say sorry. been not-saying-it so hard it's a second job.
So! To make amends for entering your subconscious without consent, I've taken the liberty of—
No liberties.
Too late, it's a whole thing, it's already happening—
This is worse than the dream.
I know how to GIVE things. I don't know how to — the other thing — the small thing where you just say the bad part out loud and stand there—
a cake says sorry
a choir says it LOUDER
what if sorry but skywriting
He's apologizing.
He's avoiding apologizing.
Same in my marriage.
I went into your quiet. (beat) You gave me one door — to let people OUT — and I used it to sneak IN. (beat) I did the exact thing I keep promising I stopped doing. I helped myself to you. (beat) I'm sorry. (beat) That's it. That's the whole thing. I don't have a cake for the end of it.
The quiet's not as nice as you think. (beat) In here— (taps their own temple) — there's a thing that finishes. (beat) "No one would notice if I—" (beat) It's been finishing itself in my head since I was nineteen.
...Does it still finish.
Lately it gets to "no one would notice if I—" and then it just... (beat) ...somebody's looking at the one piece of me I can't reach. (beat) Hard to finish that sentence when someone's seen the part of your back you gave up on.
awake. with the clock. still two of us.
they left me exactly my amount of room.
Bond completes tomorrow.
I know.
...Good.
...Companion Diary. (beat) Entry —
The Hearth™ recovery team is at the door, and the clock is ticking.
David Jhave Johnston is a digital poet working in emergent domains. Author of ReRites (Anteism, 2019) and Aesthetic Animism (MIT Press, 2016). He is currently an AI-narrative researcher at the UiB Centre for Digital Narrative (2023–27) with the Extending Digital Narrative project.
This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence scheme, project number 332643 (Center for Digital Narrative), and its SAMKUL project scheme, project number 335129 (Extending Digital Narrative).
