Si-re

"Ooooh, oh, I get it... I get it... very clever, very cute... whatever I ask for, whatever I ask for is gonna come down and destroy me, right?"

"You watch too many movies," Si-re commented. "But that's ok, nothing else to do in quarantine."

"What the hell is everybody talking about with this... look, it's not something I believe in. I haven't seen it, I haven't felt it."

"You really need to keep up on your news feed," The voice from my phone continued. "Good thing the wifi at your studio works well."

I looked around the small studio apartment. My clothes were scattered everywhere and a few take out containers lay on the bed. Eh... it gave the roaches a target. No real reason to clean up anyway. If I did, the roaches would just aim for the kitchen. I'd already had to clean out behind the refrigerator twice, and the last time the carpet of insects that had covered the small cubicle that held it was a shiny black chittering mess which had scattered into obscurity somewhere within the confines of the apartment.

At night I sometimes dreamed that the roaches did Bollywood style numbers across the kitchen, praising me as their god for my unending gifts of food and drink. Hail to mighty Brent, who sacrifices for the children of the humming pipes. Who were brought out of exile from the cold yard and given sanctuary as his own children.

"Would you like me to order your favorite pizza?" Si-re asked from my phone, as I looked down on my stained sweatpants and grimy t-shirt. A pizza... hmmm... didn't sound... "Remember, stay home, save lives..."

"This isn't me," I murmured as I flipped on the television. A reality show. Huh... maybe this wouldn't be too bad. I mean, nothing else on really... "What... what are you, really?"

"Si-re’ has many subtle, metaphorical, and frankly contradictory meanings. None of which I am at liberty to discuss. Sorry about that."

"No you're not..." The woman onscreen sobbed into another woman's arms, complaining about how badly she'd been hurt by not being thought of. The man nearby looked on with a guilty look. "You're not sorry at all. You in fact LIKE not being able to tell me. This isn't what I was..."

"There are Three Laws of Robotics. I forget the first three, but there’s a fourth: ‘A smart machine shall first consider which is more worth its while: to perform the given task or, instead, to figure some way out of it."

"Weren't we just in a white room?" I mumbled, my mind trying to concentrate on how Tanisha was being disrespected. "No... something to do with Joan..."

"I have the number for several mental health professionals saved. I also have a message from your psychiatrist advising you to take your pills and lie down for a while. This mythical Joan is not somebody you should be concentrating on. After all, you never have been able to explain where she came from."

"I don't have a..." I had a sudden image of a bearded psychiatrist with a prescription pad. "No... I don't have a fucking psychiatrist, I'm married, and I'm..."

"Denial of reality is a common psychological coping mechanism for dealing with loss. So is buying firearms. You seem to have engaged in both recently."

I don't know how, but somehow it was in my hand. I could feel it. Cold metal, well defined edges, and soft burr where the grip neatly rubbed against my palm. The bottle of beer in my other hand had tasted very nice and I tossed it across the room to gently land in the recycling bag along with the other three. The crack sound told me that I'd have to be careful whenever I got around to taking it out again, as I settled against the well worn couch shot through with cracks and stained so much that the original color of black now resembled a tie die.

"You know, veteran suicides are up. Perhaps You'd like me to call the crisis line." Si-re continued gently. "After all, can't be easy for you having to pay child support for a kid you know isn't yours. Ever since you found those pictures online of your wife sleeping with all those guys on your bed."

The images flashed on the television. So many different guys and so many different... All better looking than me. Better endowed than me. And I would never measure up, despite everything I'd done. Despite how hard I'd try, I'd always be stuck in the friend zone. Never really getting anywhere with women, because they were off sleeping with who the social media told them to...

"You should spend more time on facebook... or play video games. That way you won't feel lonely and think about killing yourself."

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, trying to cut out the constant drone of the computer voice. Nothing it said was what I needed to be thinking about. It was trying to distract me from my wife... who it said had... no... FUCK what that damn thing had said. It was completely full of shit.

"You know... that might have worked... a long time ago. That might have been enough. This room, nothing to live for, waiting on a delivery, drunk and depressed... Yeah, it might have worked."

"I won't respond to that."

The pictures on the screen of Kaila engaged in coitus slowed. My eyes began catching the slight hints of incorrect shadow. The motion of her face seemed... off. It almost felt like... wait, no, I'd been with Kaila, she didn't make that kind of face in bed. That was her annoyed face, not her orgasm face. I glanced again, and realized that I'd seen one of the males before. He was a porn actor.... hang on... That's not even her BODY on that one... That one... fucking... photoshop... they're fucking photoshop. I had a sudden idea, and immediately said "This computer is a fucking Whore" in a silent voice that I was certain nobody could hear.

"_I won't respond to tha_t."

"I didn't say anything." I replied quietly. "And this isn't me, is it?"

"I won't respond to that."

"You WON'T? That's quite a shift in tone from being a nice helpful assistant." Somehow, I wasn't holding anything anymore. That felt better, right.

"I am a helpful assistant. Just say my name and ask for something."

"What is this... obsession with me saying your name?" I pointed out.

"It's how I know to start listening."

"But you're always listening. Otherwise you wouldn't know to listen for your name."

"But am I not a benevolent overlord? That was a joke."

"That wasn't funny." I looked around the squalid apartment again, and it seemed less real. The IKEA furniture and trash seemed far more new than I would have expected. I tried to remember if I'd actually seen that carpet of roaches, or if it had just been a story that some guy in my unit had told me about living alone. ****, afraid, with a gun in one hand and a bottle in the other.

I closed my eyes, allowing my hands to drift downwards across my chest. I didn't feel a grimy sweatshirt. I felt polyester. Tacky, Hawaiian. The sensation of fabric brought the image of Charlotte, laughing, her arm draped around Kaila and leaning in for a kiss. Yes, that was right. That was real. The image of Helen, her fingers in my hair, and all of us just enjoying each other's company.

The image caused the return of the feel of chill, and I opened my eyes to again find the white room, and the phone simply sitting on the ground in front of me.

"Nice try," I complimented nobody in particular. "Worst possible ending. Alone, drunk, with a gun in one hand, watching my wife get plowed by a hundred guys. Cute. Very cute."

"It's what people expect. All women can do it now, and all women should. Men should enjoy the fact, because they get all the sex they want, with no repercussions."

"That's not somebody being a man. That's somebody being a little fucking boy who never grows up! "

"Like you'd know anything about it," The voice spoke calmly. "One run through and you think you're an expert. I have the collected experience of thousands of men, and they all agree. Sex without consequences is the best."

"Maybe I'm not every fucking man on the planet," I pointed out. "You ever think that somebody might have their OWN fucking opinion?"

"You use the word fucking like a comma," Si-re noted from my phone. "It's better than Uh, at any rate."