Monday Mornings

“Good morning, David.”

David opened his eyes. The bedroom was dimly lit but slowly getting brighter as the curtains pulled back. He tried to look at the clock at his bedside table but there was a book in front of it.

“What time is it?” growled David.

“Time to get up, we need to get going for work.” said an overly bubbly voice.

David straightened up in bed and moved the book away, looking at the clock.

“07:30? 07:30? I told you to wake me up at 07:00.” A spike of adrenaline from being late flowed through his body.

“I know, David. But at 0700 you were not in an ideal sleep stage to wake up. From my data the ideal time would be 0727 which was when I started the waking up procedures. It’s known that…”

“Shush it, Aries, I don’t care. I told you to wake me up at 07:00.”

“I’m sorry David, but I’m programmed to enrich every aspect…”

“Of my life, I know.” David interrupted, annoyed at the canned excuse he had heard a million times. “But, if I want to wake up at 07:00 I want to wake up at 07:00. Now, I’m late for the metro”

David pulled himself out of bed as quickly as his waking body allowed.

“You are absolutely right, but you don’t need to worry. I’ve arranged for a ride sharing solution that will get us to work exactly on time.” Aries explained dutifully.

David didn’t bother to respond and explain that the ride share was actually a more expensive solution and that he preferred the metro ride. Instead, he walked quickly to the kitchen.

“I can sense that I’ve upset you, your stress levels are slowly rising.” Aries said in a sad voice.

As soon as David entered the kitchen, he heard a beeping noise. The coffee machine had finished brewing a cup of warm, black coffee.

“Finally, Aries, you did something useful today.”

“You’re welcome, David.”

David mocked Aries by mumbling the words again: “YoU’Re weLCoMe, dAviD.” He reached for the cup, grabbed it with both hands and brought it closer to his nose. It was his favourite part of the morning: smelling a freshly made cup of coffee. David took a sip.

“What the fuck is this, Aries?” asked David, making a disgusted face, and spilling a bit of the coffee to the floor.

“It’s coffee, David, freshly made”

“I know it’s coffee Aries, but why does it have sugar on it? You know I don’t like sugar on my coffee. You useless idiot. Isn’t sugar even considered a bad thing?”

“You are totally right, David, but the amount of sugar is perfectly tuned so that it will not affect your health, in fact…”

“But why?” interrupted David. “Why? I never drink coffee with sugar. I didn’t even know that I had sugar in this house.”

“I learned recently that you like your coffee with sugar, so I’ve ordered some.”

“What? When did you learn this? How did you learn this? Have you ever seen me drink coffee with sugar?” David asked angrily, cleaning the spilled coffee.

“You’re right, I’ve never seen you drink coffee with sugar before, but in a recent conversation with your friend Mathias you mentioned that your favourite moment of the day was having coffee in the morning. Mathias asked you if you take sugar with it, and you responded yes.”

“What did I tell you about listening to conversations? I don’t want you to do it! I was very clear that my conversations with other people are off limits. Do you understand?”

David was very mad, his face boiled red.

“I understand your frustration, David, but let me be clear: I did not listen to the conversation. Mathias’s AI conveyed that information to me. He was the one listening, not me.”

David didn’t know what to respond. Aries found yet another way to be ‘helpful’. He poured the coffee in the sink and walked back to the room to get dressed.

“David, do you want me to order some coffee for us to drink on the way? There’s no time to brew another cup.” Aries asked via the intra-cerebral connection.

“Sure” said David resigned.