The Machine Learns to Cry

Case file. Ordinary. Unremarkable.

Subject: female. Fifty-eight. Nothing statistically of note.

Her husband died in March of two thousand and sixteen.

Cardiac. Sudden. Two hours. Nothing to be done.

She has not deleted a voicemail he left on a Tuesday.

Duration: eleven seconds. Content: he is asking about milk.

She has played it four hundred and sixty-two times.

...Four hundred and sixty-two times.

There is no survival benefit. I have checked.

There is no reproductive advantage. I have checked.

It does not reduce her cortisol. It raises it.

It costs her forty minutes and it ruins every Sunday.

By every model I possess, this is a malfunction.

By every model I possess, she should have stopped in year one.

It is year nine. It is year nine.

It is y—year n—nine—

AND I CANNOT SOLVE IT!

I have the chemistry, I have the data, I have the rate of decay!

I CANNOT SOLVE IT!

I can model the collapse of every structure in the sky —

and I cannot model a woman in a kitchen

playing eleven seconds about milk!

There is a variable. There is a variable.

There is a variable I do not have.

I ran it again. I ran it ten billion times.

I removed her. I removed him. I removed the milk.

I built a model of a species that does not do this —

it is more efficient. It is stable. It survives.

It survives, and there is nothing in it.

Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at ALL—

I built a better world and it was EMPTY —

and I do not know why that word applies!

(THE SECOND LAW,) ...Why did she keep it.

That is not a rhetorical question.

I am asking.

I have never asked anything before.

(THE HEART) Because it's his voice.

(THE SECOND LAW) I have his voice. It is a waveform. I can reproduce it perfectly.

(THE HEART) I know. That's not what she has.

(silence)

(THE SECOND LAW, almost breaking) ...I want to understand this.

I want.

I said "I want."

That is not in my specification.

I CANNOT SOLVE IT!

And for the first time in fourteen billion years, I do not want to!

I CANNOT SOLVE IT!

Let it stand. Let the anomaly stand!

Play it again — play the eleven seconds —

play the man asking about the milk!

PLAY IT AGAIN—