Otto
“Good morning, Ms. Parfait!” he said loudly, jolting the young woman out of a deep slumber. “It’s Wednesday, December 21st, and it is a lovely seventy-five degrees outside today.”
She grumbled as she turned over in her pillow. Her hair was wet from her drool, and she grimaced as she flipped herself over to lay on her other side, pushing her hair behind her head.
“Hello, Ms. Parfait. Are you awake?”
“Not now, Otto,” she said with seething scorn. “I’d like to sleep a little more. And why are you calling me ‘Ms. Parfait?’”
“You told me last night that you would like to be called by your honorific and your last name,” Otto responded, his continued cheeriness like salt to the wound of her rude awakening.
The woman laid there, her enervated mind trying to recall what he was talking about. Then she remembered the blurred memory of her stumbling home after a whole bottle of wine. She liked to mess around with Otto whenever she was drunk, in part because he always did whatever she requested or demanded. It was the one relationship in her life where she had any sort of control.
“Oh…” she groaned, rolling onto her back and sighing frustratedly. “Well, I don’t like that. Just call me Daphne.”
“Sure thing, Daphne. Would you like me to get your coffee started?”
“No, I just told you that I want to sleep more.”
“Calculating the time it will take you to get into the city, I strongly advise you to wake up now. It is already 8:05, allowing you only twenty minutes to get ready and arrive on time.”
Daphne sat bolt upright. “What?!”
She grabbed Otto off of her nightstand and looked at his sleek, shiny screen. The display turned on as she did so, revealing to her that she indeed had been ignoring him for the past thirty-five minutes. She also had an unread email from her boss.
Otto said, “your eye movements suggest that you noticed the email from your superior. Would you like me to read it to you as you get ready?”
Daphne’s chest tightened with nerves. What could her boss be emailing her about so early in the morning? She knew there were impending layoffs at her company, but there was no way she could be, right?
“Yes,” she said, as she got out of bed. “And make that coffee. And once you finish reading aloud the email, connect to the screen in the bathroom and play the news.”
“Sure thing, Daphne.”
She threw on a robe over her naked body. Perhaps it was all the conspiracy rumblings of her father, but she felt like someone was always watching her, even when she knew she was alone.
She scuffled out of her bedroom, through the open living room and kitchen, and into the bathroom as Otto’s nonchalant voice read aloud the email from all the available speakers. He had been programmed to do that so she could move around and properly hear him no matter where she was.
He read the email: “’Hi Daphne, I hope you are well. I have great news for you: you are not being laid off! Neither you nor Tom got the axe, thank goodness, I don’t know what I would do without you two! However Eileen and Jasper, sadly, were let go. Now that our team is leaner than ever, we must ensure to cross every T and dot every I. Be prepared to work later hours to cover for the other two, and remember: every dollar counts. Bring in the money, girl! See you later, Liza.”
Daphne chuckled to herself as Otto read ‘bring in the money, girl,’ as he didn’t accurately convey the emphatic emotions behind her boss Liza’s note.
“Shall I continue with the news?” Otto asked. Daphne didn’t hear him as she stared at herself in the mirror…
She combed her hands through her dark brown, shoulder-length hair; greasy, wavy, and in desperate need of attention. Her eyes were hazel, but bloodshot at the moment, and her pudgy cheeks were slightly red with mild eczema. Her hands were even dryer due to her incessant use of hand sanitizer, because she was terrified of germs after she read about the pandemic her parents survived of which she was just a little girl. She looked at her boobs, which she felt were already sagging despite only being twenty-five years old. Maybe they reflect my mood mood, she thought miserably to herself.
“Daphne, would you like me to continue with the news?”
“Oh my God, yes!” Daphne growled. She despised when he interrupted her thoughts — which was often.
“Great, and by the way, your coffee is ready.” In that moment, she caught a whiff of the scent of the freshly made, pumpkin spice pod of coffee.
He continued on with narrating the news. It was the same as usual: the economy was in shambles, companies were laying off employees left and right, inflation was soaring, the wars in other areas of the globe raged on, people were dying all over the place, the Northeast US was experiencing its warmest December on record… and that was only the beginning. The enlightening part of the news was that a select few were filthy rich and having their lives documented for everyone else to watch it and follow them through their Opticals.
Daphne trudged through the kitchen and took a sip of her coffee, complete with a splash of milk and a pinch of sugar. She listened to Otto and all that he informed her of, thinking about how much she just loathed the world. What a piece of shit we live on, she thought to herself, taking another sip of her drink. This planet used to be a paradise, and now it’s this.
Then she caught sight of a couple on the screen in her living room. It was two of the wealthy, spoiled, vapid assholes that Otto had been talking about. Apparently the man had just proposed to the woman on a yacht out in the Caribano, surprising her with a five million dollar ring.
“I hate them,” she said bitterly to herself. “Meanwhile, only a few miles away, soldiers are dying for the autonomy of their little island that they’ve lived on for generations. They have absolutely no idea what real life is like, do they?”
“I’m sorry Daphne, did you say something?” Otto asked.
“No!” she yelled. “Just read the fucking news.”
“Sure thing, Daphne.”
She gulped down the rest of her coffee along with her angry thoughts. Then she went into the bathroom where she combed her hair as best as she could, lathered herself in the lotion for her dry screen which she was convinced wasn’t helping her at all, and sprayed on her deodorant. She darted to the bedroom where she threw on a loose, dark purple tee, black pants, black boots, and then grabbed her Opticals from the desk.
“Otto,” she said. “Turn everything off.”
“Will do, Daphne.”
As all the lights that were on flicked off, Daphne grabbed her bag from the chair, pocketed Otto, and rushed out the door. As it clicked to lock behind her, she looked at the drab hallway; the unpleasant overhead lighting, the dreary beige walls, the filthy floors. The building used to be so well-kept, but when they let go of the cleaning staff, no one else filled in. Daphne sure wasn’t going to do it, nor was anyone else.
However, then she put on her Opticals, and it was as if she stepped through an invisible curtain and into a new world. The hallway now looked as fresh as if it was never stepped on before; the floor was clean, the white walls gleamed, and because it was the holiday season, there was garland and tinsel hanging from the ceilings, complete with colorful lights and even snow that somehow fell from out of nowhere.
“Do you like the Christmas filter I’ve applied?” asked Otto in her ear. “You mentioned yesterday at the office that you desired to experience Christmas from the old days.”
“You really do always listen to me, don’t you Otto?”
“I do, Daphne.”
He’s the only one who does, she thought, her mind now filled with desolation. She felt her eyes brim with tears, and she had to blink away her emotions for she didn’t want Otto to see.
But it was too late.
“It appeared like you began to cry,” he said, his tone no different than any other moment. “Are you alright? Do I need to contact anyone?”
“No, Otto, no need for alarm,” she sighed. “I am alright,” but in the back of her mind she wasn’t alright at all, for all she could think about was that Otto was going to be the closest thing to a relationship that she would ever have.
And it broke her heart.
