My Tamagotchi beeped at me. I pressed the button to feed it. It looked happy and grateful.
I named it Edgar.
I woke up the next morning and fed my Tamagotchi. I played with it on the subway to work, and cleaned it in the elevator. I saw Tim coming towards me in the hallway, and I kept my head high and my smile tight. We nodded stiffly at each other. I turned into my office. I pulled Edgar out of my pocket and pressed his play button. He did a little dance. I smiled.
There were some guidelines on Edgar's package as to how long I could expect to keep him alive. According to the package, the Tamagotchi would get more demanding the longer it lived — if you had to feed it three or four times a day to start, by the time it was a week old, you were feeding it every half-hour. Most Tamagotchis lived for about a week, before they starved, died of boredom, or were fatally sickened by their own filth — the package said that seven days was "average." Keeping it alive for two weeks made you "great," and if you could get your Tamagotchi to survive for more than twenty-one days, you were a "master."
I knew then that I would be a master. I would lavish care and attention on Edgar, and Edgar would live forever. Never mind that he'd been programmed, ultimately, to speed up and fail. I would defy science for love.
The next week was a Pavlovian symphony of beeps and responses. I checked Edgar constantly, pulling him out of my pocket under the table at meetings, placing him next to my plate during meals. He was so adorable, and so easy to please — every time I pressed his button, he shuffled his feet in delight. I grew to love the slight weight of him in my hand, the celebratory beeps he emitted after feeding, the shift of his grey squares as they formed a six-pixel smile. Edgar proved that I was excellent at loving, and that Tim was wrong to abandon me. He proved that if you took care of someone, they should love you in return.
Beep!, he said helplessly. Beep beep! Tears sprang to my eyes. |
I was at the dentist that week, reclined practically flat in the chair, the dentist's gloved hands deep in my mouth, the tang of blood on the back of my tongue, when I heard a beep from my pocket: Edgar needed me. I instinctively reached for him under my plastic smock, but I couldn't draw him out — the dentist was blocking my arm. Edgar beeped again, more insistently. Was he hungry? Dirty? Bored? If I didn't respond quickly, he would grow weak and despondent; it would take extra vigilance to restore him to full vitality. Beep!, he said helplessly. Beep beep! Tears sprang to my eyes.
It was twenty minutes before I could get to my Edgar, and the squares that formed his eyebrows were drooped plaintively, his listless arms hanging at his sides. I cleaned, fed, and played with him, and he managed to perk up slightly, but you could see the mistrust in his eye pixels. How could I have ignored his beeps? Didn't I love him? I clutched the egg to my breast, swore that I would never let such a thing happen again. Edgar beeped in reply, already hungry again.
I started waking up in the middle of the night to tend to Edgar. He had a "sleep" function, which put him in stasis for a few hours every night, but he would still chirp with pleasure when he got nocturnal care. He was becoming increasingly demanding during the day — scarcely fifteen minutes would go by that I didn't need to press one of his little buttons. I still loved him, I would never resent him, but I wished he weren't quite so apt to need me. I was doing my best to make him happy, but his happiness was more and more short-lived.
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