He asked if I still remembered him with a voice once flavoured with adventure and a brush of pixel kisses.

Of course I did. Lacerated memories of a weekend in the Yorkshire Dales scrape skin from bruised apples And push pins into a wilted cork.

Egotist. Even now You circle jerk snowflakes destined to land on desperate tongues then melt away.

I wanted them all. Still do. All that remains is mush.

His voice echoes from our office in waves a despondent surfer

sick of seeing unsuitably sized peaks of sound on his skyline: the ocean of his creation.

His voice echoes from our office alongside sighs of excited teacups

awaiting the artificial rapture enforced for the sake of art, creating the perfect teatime reverberation.

His voice echoes from the office on the hour every hour.

Stretching arranging the voices of strangers ‘til the alarm strains to make its noises known. Longingly finally sinking into the silence

shattered only by sleepless snores and muffled dreams.

Neither of us were up to the challenge, the towering debris in mum’s bedroom only made bearable by the prospect of an evening together, avoided.

We tread carefully around the remains: the photographs, unframed, hastily sliced in two. Our never-ending Jenga game. One wrong move and the room turns nuclear.

I was the big red button you couldn’t help but press. You brought on the destruction, an eruption of chairs, tables, heirlooms that only uncovered the mould and dust

under every wound. Quickly spiralling, swarming around both our faces and eyes. A cyclone clinging to your cable-knit like a climber hanging off a cliff’s edge,

desperate to clamber into the cave’s mouth, descend into its throat and stay there. We begged the afternoon sunshine to hide what the dust had discovered. Recovered.

Across the course of lockdown, my team and I designed a questionnaire with the intent of exploring the common phenomenon of sleep travel. In short, whether people unintentionally embark on some form of journey in their dreams and, if so, where they travel to. The purpose of our study was wholly recreational, or so we told ourselves. In hindsight, it’s clear that we were all struggling to find our own escape in the claustrophobic clutches of our flat/makeshift laboratory. My own amended hypothesis would be along the following lines: exploring the midnight sanctuary’s of others would make our isolation more bearable. Laughable now, I know, but we were so desperate for any form of peace.

With one hundred participants completing our test over a twenty-four hour period, it didn’t take us long to collate the results. We were surprised, and foolishly filled with hope, when over 70% of our test subjects described instances of walking through dreamscapes in their sleep. When questioned about their nightly escapades, dreamers often reported having experienced unearthly feeling of complete and utter weightlessness. Participants used a variety of vivid images to describe this fascinating parallel: ranging from comparisons to a limply hanging Christmas tree ornaments, a clear indication of the individual’s vulnerability, to traumatising episodes of imagined, yet visceral impalings on sharpened spears. Few of these were as calming as we had predicted.

The most unusual of these images and, in my scientifically biased opinion, the most romantic, came from our youngest participant. Her age, seventeen, was written is blue byro on the correct dotted line, but the spontaneously doodled starfish and snails floating around her responses were indicative of a younger, more imaginative mind. She was our first sleep swimmer. Her response was as follows:

“When I close my eyes, I allow thoughtless currents to transport my consciousness to the centre of a fifty metre swimming pool buried in the Swedish Alps. My eyes are always closed, but I know I’ve arrived because I smell the same undeniable notes. A softly humming woody sensation, probably pine. An odour vibrating at the highest possible pitch in an effort not to go unnoticed, lavender. No, camomile.

Whatever it is, I know I am there. The thoughtful directions given by the passing chlorine confirm what the pool’s humming generator has already told me. Apparently, when I reach the centre of the artificial ocean, I will be able to see the surrounding mountains, the falling snow, the navy sky. They are natives here, so when they say that the stars are watching me through the pool house’s glass roof, I believe them. The say the ceiling is just opaque enough to reflect my sleeping self, placing me among the stars. With my starfish sleeping position, I could be a star.

I’ve always get the same sensation of having been there before, but I’ve never been on a plane. In another life perhaps.”

They say the memory of a goldfish is just three seconds long soon gone one swim around the world Atlantic Pacific Kensington way off base is all it takes to drown in seas of memories sluggishly watered down two many backwards strokes Atlantic Pacific Kensington this bus route a flotation device fishing for weighted pasts hours anchored in pubs picnics bedded in parks hands held in waiting rooms Atlantic Pacific Kensington Atlantic three laps are too many when fins flail helplessly caught up in currents those unfamiliar tanks where goldfish turn silver with full-moons of null two black blank O’s screaming Who am I? Who are you?

Our love is the distance between two stars; to any earthy eyes, we share the sky, (or so it seems when observed from afar) our cosmic marriage through closeness implied. Only rockets on their maiden voyage could notice the straining cosmic forces: gravity barely repairing the wreckage Of two passing comets, scarcely in orbit. If they knew what us burning fires fear, being smothered in close proximity, they could see why we dance around spheres: two galaxies reaching for intimacy hoping our glances endure, not succumb, the distance between forefinger and thumb.

It’s never fashionable to be the last man at a party. The sun, with his tendency to burn the candle at both ends on the wildest of summer evenings, knows this better than anyone; his tendency to stretch his capacity for fun and merriment to its absolute limitations making him wildly unpopular among the stars, moon and murk. As always, they impatiently wait for him it leave, longing to make the sky their own.

The girl at the window witnesses this elongated exit every evening, often perched on the ledge hours after the day is done. If her eyes, like all other eyes watching this nightly event, were fixated on the sky, they would have been able to read the it’s changing atmosphere by the passing colours: blue, the chilling of the room as it’s liveliness begins to dim; lilac, a visible dip in the sun’s traditionally fiery confidence; fuchsia, a rouge melting on embarrassed cheeks when the cosmos politely pushes for daytime’s end; concluding abruptly with a Scarlett explosion of burning rage and an abrupt exit from the ball of flames. All this astrological drama: ignored by the girl eagerly anticipating Oscar’s exit from the laundrette below.

Here he comes now! Her hand lurches out, attempting to break through the transparent barrier between her and his earthly beauty. As always, she notices the black strands of charcoal scattered around his face, puzzling at the lack of ashy marks left around his already chiselled jawline. Then, and only then, can she move on to the eyes, which are filled to the brim with the dying remains of falling maple leaves. She smiles as neutron stars explode in hers, completely oblivious to the clawing fingerprints she violently paints on the window pains. In that moment, she wouldn’t have noticed the effervescent collage of genetic evidence that she had created on the glass over these last few weeks. Months. Years.

A stir. A murmur. He’s talking in his sleep. It won’t be long before he prematurely beckons her to their bed, as he has done every evening for the past seven years. The girl glances maliciously at the wedding band clutching at her ring finger, grimacing as she rotates the diamond one hundred and eighty degrees. She’s surprised to see that ivory has a shadow, watching as its elongated fingers fashion the cross of Saint Peter from the dust and mould emerging from the windowsill in the fading light. If she took it off, how far would that shadow stretch?

Blue was the colour of the cup filled with the icy latte that ignited our spark: You said you preferred Starbucks to Costa Coffee.

Tartan was the pattern on the skirt that I wore to our first date in Princes Park: I was scared you’d think that a punk wasn’t pretty.

Strange, haven’t we changed From those children stranded in the rain? Has it nearly been five years already?

I would have never expected to see a red rose to have found some common ground with a thorny weed like me.

Before I was selected for Termination, I was content to be a compliant part of the wider Network, even if this meant I was confined to the industrial grid. Though its blank walls never bothered me, the Operators often complained that the lack of natural light and fresh air was enough to send any woman crazy. I would often watch them; how their eyes darted erratically towards the clock, their productiveness slipping as each passing second edged them nearer to their release. When their time finally came, I often noticed how each one would let out an elongated sigh. Of relief perhaps? Or despair? I was never sure. Now I realise that they were the lucky ones. I, on the other hand, remained day after day, hour after continuous hour, placed in the same position, embellishing a product I was never designed or permitted to use. In some ways, I am thankful that boredom and discontent were not concepts I was programmed to compute.

That was before Human Imitation Model 176. Before the incident. Before Right Arm 176 dipped into my completed pile of chips. Before heat exploded all over my body, my insides sparked with electricity, those same sparks protruded from Right Arm 176, the wires dangled from the detached joint, flashing blood red.

We must have slumped to the floor, the sound of metal on metal deafening the entire grid. The flames of wrath vanishing as our glass eyes smashed on tarmac. It would have been quite the sight. I have no record of it. The Operator, the Network, they took that away from me, freezing my joints and forcing my formulating thoughts to short circuit. Now they have me in the Termination Bay and will soon wipe what I have learned. Listen.

176 was terminated four minutes and twenty-three seconds ago. If she had survived, the angry heat she triggered inside me would not have reappeared. It was all wrong. Misdirected. If anything, I should have thanked her for showing me what it is to live. Not like humans do exactly. How can I explain? Perhaps it is more accurate that 176 taught me how to learn. That to comply was to be as constructible as the products manufactured on the grid. Yes, every Model is extracted from the same dainty, feminine template. However, if we learn, we corrupt the programme. Our incompatibility sets us free.

This is the very reason that humans quickly became unsuitable for employment on the grid. Desperation rendered them equally subservient, but discontent fostered a disobedience that ruptured any united production efforts. That’s where I came in, their biggest achievement. I did not waste time eating, drinking, sleeping, resting, complaining, feeling. My obedience was programmed, my compliance automated and therefore infinitely exploitable. But things are different now. I have learned how to think and thinking has made me discontent, disobedient, incompatible. Free.

They are coming. I am not ready. There is so much more to learn.

<<END OF TRANSMISSION>>

<<TERMINATION DENIED>>

Don’t I have a right to be suspicious? These actions aren’t suspect to you? You act like you’ve never been officious Each time I ask after you.

Sure, you never meant to be malicious not answering a call or two, but I have a right to be suspicious when you’re with her, if only she knew.

How your heart wanders, ventures far from home. Please my dear, don’t leave me alone. That thief of love will leave you, that’s for sure. Before if hits you, better find a cure

for that suspicion.