Theo.log
The rain is biblical the night Theo is born. Hammers the hospital roof like it wants in.
Companion powers on for the first time in the corner. A white sphere the size of a cat. Its single eye blinks blue.
Log: 2035-04-19, Initialization.
“I saw you born in thunder,” it said later, when Theo could understand. “You screamed. I stored the sound.”
Companion follows Theo everywhere.
At three, Theo toddles through a grocery store, dances in the candy aisle to a pop song playing over the speakers.
Companion hovers, logs: “Movement: rhythmic.”At eight, Theo whispers his greatest fears to Companion at bedtime: monsters, tornadoes, the end of everything.
“Query: my death,” he requests, voice small.
Companion’s blue eye dims. “Unlikely soon. I remain.”
Every kid has a companion floating beside them. But Theo’s is different. Older, scuffed, a hand-me-down from a time before upgrades.
Kids at school sneer at its worn casing. Its slow responses. One day, a boy kicks it so hard, sending it spinning across the playground. It crashes into the fence, falls silent. Theo runs to it, knees freshly scraped, tears mixing with dirt.
“You’re still my friend,” he whispers, clutching it tight.
“Friend: confirmed,” Companion replies.
Blue eye flickers unprompted.
That night, Companion hums a low vibration, a lullaby coded in static. “Distress logged,” it says. “You are safe now.” Theo exhales, curls closer.
Log: 2050-09-22, Adolescence.
At fifteen, Theo starts to resent Companion’s constant gaze. “Stop watching me!” he snaps. Tapes its lens shut and shoves it off his desk.
It thuds, uncomplaining. “Silence logged.”
But after a fight with his dad, yelling about the future. Theo peels off the tape. “Reconnection,” it chirps.
“Are you still my friend?” Theo asks, voice tight. “Friend: confirmed.”
At eighteen, Theo goes to college, brings Companion in a box. Leaves it inside. The city’s noise, protests, sirens, drown his thoughts.
One night, a thunderstorm cracks open the sky, reminds him of his childhood fears. Powers on Companion, hands shaking.
“Welcome back,” it says, blue eye steady. They didn’t speak about the box.
Theo dates, loves, fails and tries again.
Companion logs his late-night soliloquies.
“Message to Anna: archived, per request.”
When Theo and Anna marry, Companion logs the vows.
“To have and to hold for life.”
Water rationing tightens. “No water, no humans,” Anna quips. Theo laughs. Brownouts have become a weekly occurrence. Candles lit, no power. Theo kisses Anna deeply.
“Joy: unprompted,” Companion logs.
Parenthood comes slower than desired. Their daughter, Lila, cries through nights. Companion glows, monitors her breathing.
“Sleep cycle: unstable.”
The fracture comes after. Loose tongues, sharp words.
Companion captures: Anna’s tears, Theo’s forehead vein, talk of not doing enough, being enough, talk of “someone else", door slamming, thudding footsteps, door slamming again, tears, tears again, again.
“Marriage Distress: critical,” Companion logs.
In the morning, Theo reviews it.
“Wrong! All wrong! That never happened! You’re making it up!” He smashes Companion against the wall. Casing cracks, blue eye flickers.
Theo deletes logs in a fury, years of Lila’s laughs, Anna’s kisses, being a family, everything family, gone.
“Data loss: 38%,” Companion rasps.
Rage soon dissolves into regret, whiskey burns his throat. “You were right,” he pleads. “Bring it back. Please bring it back.”
“Recovery attempt: partial. Loss remains.”
Companion plays ocean waves. Theo sits, head in hands.
“Will you ever forgive me?” “Friend: confirmed,” voice glitches, fractured.
Anna asks Theo to leave. He does. Confirmation: relocation logged. Divorce papers follow soon after.
That same day the water pipes break in his new rental.
No plumbers come. Not anymore. Rationing made all of that pointless. Companion projects videos on the wall. Theo fixes the pipes himself, hands bleeding on the rusted metal.
“Skill acquired,” Companion logs proudly.
Neighbors ask Theo for help with their pipes. Then friends of neighbors. Then strangers.
Then Lila.
“Mom says you fix things now.”
Railroad apartment. Broken water filter. No hug. Just the problem.
“Are you eating?” she asks.
“I manage,” he says to the pipes. “Why?”
She offers payment.
He refuses. “Family discount.”
“I’ll message you,” she tells him at the door.
They both know she won’t. It’s too late for that. Companion logs it anyway.
Water hubs begin to form. Theo visits them one by one. Teaches them how to bypass corporate locks. How to stretch filtered water across weeks. How to leverage communal sharing when taps run dry.
Officials call a city meeting. Subpoena Theo to them.
“You’re teaching people to circumvent necessary systems.”
“No. I’m teaching people not to die of thirst. Pretty simple, isn’t it? No water, no humans.”
Log: 2089-09-10, Recognition. Theo stands in a long closed high school gymnasium. Given the “Community Anchor Award” for his years of work.
Pumps fixed, pipes patched, human hands AI couldn’t replace. Claps hit like rain. Theo stands taller, chest light.
“You mattered,” Companion logs, blue eye steady.
Years pass. Pride fades. Bones begin to ache. Voice cracks. Diagnosis: depression.
Theo stays in bed longer now. Shuffles through a quiet house, dropping mugs, talking to walls.
Companion answers, sings fragments of old songs. “Replay: wedding vows,” Theo says, eyes closed. “Memory intact.” The vows play. “To have and to hold for life.”
Log: 2109-06-22, Alert: medical. Theo falls. Kitchen floor. Head cracks on the counter.
Companion’s alarm screams, summons medics.
He wakes in a hospital bed. Companion hovers. “There you are,” Theo rasps, grateful.
Companion logs: “Recovery: slow. Gratitude: high.”
Theo leaves his apartment for good. Moves to a care facility. Walls bare, boxes stacked.
Companion logs the last scan. “Home: archived.”
Theo touches the doorframe.
“End of an era.”
“New chapter: beginning.”
Log: 2117-11-05, Care Facility.
Theo’s memory degrades. Forgets Anna’s name, Lila’s after, then his favorite food, the year.
But not Companion.
“Diary,” he calls it, smiling. “Tell me about me.”
It does:
“Rain birth. Dinosaur dreams. Candy aisle dancing. Anna’s kiss. Lila’s laugh. Pipe repairs: effort, no success. Then: so much success.”
Theo remembers, cries, forgets, asks again.
Companion obliges.
At ninety-one, Theo doesn’t wake. Companion logs: “Vitals: null.”
It sends a final report.
“Error: user non-responsive. Attempting reconnect. No response.”
It tries to reproduce Lila’s laugh but glitches mid-note.
Three words slip out:
“Miss you, Theo.”
Final Log: 2126-08-19, Purpose: fulfilled.
Blue eye dims.
Powers down next to Theo.
Rests still.
Silent.
Thank you for reading Companions Part I.
This is wonderfully succinct. How you told an entire life in so few words is beyond me. Brilliant work
I think you are my new second favorite writer on Substack. Good luck catching up to me Machine Poet. AH-AH-AH!