Lars crouched down on the ceramic tiles and squinted at the unit\u2019s diagnostic panel. \u201cYou said it forced you onto a wheat-only diet plan, Miss Wheeler?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d She was standing at the far end of the room, a look of unease on her slender face. Her petite nose curved above narrow lips; features that seemed remarkably familiar to him. When she\u2019d first answered the door, Lars had almost thought he\u2019d called in on his wife by mistake. \u201cBut that\u2019s not all. It…talks to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The unit was supposed to be conversational–provide recipe suggestions, offer dietary advice–but Lars had a feeling she meant something else entirely. He let out a deep breath and flipped the debugging switch. A blue light swelled on the panel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat have you been saying to Miss Wheeler?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want her to know how much I adore her,\u201d the fridge said. \u201cThe curves of her body set my circuits ablaze with passion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lars glanced at the woman and raised an eyebrow. \u201cYou love her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith every inch of my silicon, yes. But I fear she does not feel the same. She spurns my advances. Hides behind a wall of silence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lars frowned and wiped a hand on his green coveralls. The third-gen models were prone to memory leaks, which might have warped its personality matrix. If he didn\u2019t fix it soon, the bug could spread across the whole network. He surveyed the other appliances in the room–the dishwasher, the oven, the toaster–and wondered what a lovesick kitchen might look like. He hoped he wouldn\u2019t have to find out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat am I supposed to do?\u201d Miss Wheeler said. \u201cSing it love songs while it feeds me bread?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot just bread.\u201d The unit\u2019s blue light pulsed. \u201cShe likes bagels and waffles. Pop tarts too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pop tarts? Lars\u2019 eyes shot to the small chrome box sitting on the counter. \u201cIs that a smart-toaster, Miss Wheeler?\u201d<\/p>\n
She shook her head. The afternoon light bounced off her wavy hair and he saw how easily someone could fall in love with her. She really did look like his wife; she had the same brown eyes that he could get lost in forever. But the fridge wasn\u2019t talking about her.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have any idea what it\u2019s like to love someone who doesn\u2019t love you back?\u201d it pined.<\/p>\n
Lars cracked open the panel and had a look at its settings. Sure enough, the fridge had been set up to interact with the toaster, driven slowly insane by its one-way channel. He killed the connection and hit the reset button. \u201cThat should do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman thanked him as he got to his feet. She stared at the fridge while it booted back up, her face growing wistful. \u201cIt would be terrible to have all those emotions just wiped out like that. As if they never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Better to have loved and lost, I suppose,\u201d Lars said. But as he left the kitchen he found himself rubbing the empty space on his finger where he no longer wore a ring, wishing for a reset button of his own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lars crouched down on the ceramic tiles and squinted at the unit\u2019s diagnostic panel. \u201cYou said it forced you onto a wheat-only diet plan, Miss Wheeler?\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d She was standing at the far end of the room, a look of unease on her slender face. Her petite nose curved above narrow lips; features that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105672,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19717],"tags":[19718],"class_list":["post-131931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-27-spring-2018","tag-the-colored-lens-27-spring-2018","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/105672"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132872,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131931\/revisions\/132872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}