Creature Comforts

She stands pondering before me, just as she does every Sunday. With a feather duster in one hand and furniture polish in the other, she is armed for her weekly cleaning regimen. She spends her morning sweeping, mopping, and washing the windows all while stealing glances my way as she passes back and forth in front of where I sit lifeless. Like clockwork, she has paused her tidying, brows furrowed as she considers me.

I know that look. It’s the same expression she dons each week.

She’s asking herself why she even bothers with me; why she holds on to a machine whose lifespan has been far exceeded, stretched beyond its means. The signs of my geriatric existence are evident at merely a glance. Her shoulders slump under the weight of nostalgia and a fading connection to her past.

“Maybe you’ll work, today,” she says with a cautious optimism I can’t help but embody as well. I want to tell her I’ll try. I’ll try like I try every week.

She reaches behind me to retrieve the cord that brings me to life. A surge of energy races through my circuits and enlivens my senses with a low hum of electricity. Maybe today is the day, I hope to myself. She places her hands gingerly on my sides and whispers a plea to anyone listening. “Please let this work. Please?”

She doesn’t hear me repeating her prayers with diligent devotion.

Her finger wavers before an ‘eject’ button on my facing. “Whatever you do: DO NOT EAT IT, okay?” I silently promise to do my best. The responsibility and desire to acquiesce lingers palpable in the air that surrounds us. I don’t want to let her down.

Again.

She closes her eyes, bracing for what comes next as her finger makes purchase with the ‘eject’ button. My motors engage, quickly grinding to a halt when my mechanisms employ a failsafe designed to preserve the fragile tape wound like a serpent between reels that refuse to operate accordingly. She scowls, letting out a huff of air at my inability to let go of what she holds dear. As she has done two dozen times before, she lifts the door on my face plate, peeking inside for a solution to no avail. There’s nothing to be seen while I house what she’s after. The words “Samantha’s Various Tapes ’87-’99” seem to nearly taunt her. Her personal archive of cherished moments assembled by a dear and departed loved one sits centimeters away, and a mechanical world apart.

She makes a second attempt, this time seeking the assistance of a man I know from our hours spent replaying her childhood memories when her heart pulls her to her knees to weep- and to the couch to reminisce. “Come on, Pawpaw… Please, make this thing work. Please come fix this damn VCR.” I recall the way her younger self would drag out the syllables in his name when beckoning him for help, much like she did now. Some things never change.

She presses ‘eject’ and pauses to listen again while I make little to no headway freeing the tape from my unwitting grasp. I try with all my might to release her treasure, only to fail her again and again. I feel stuck; frozen in time in both design and function. A burdensome beast who has taken the gift of the man she loves the most in the world, whose spirit haunts the film I keep hidden against my will, a specter whose laughter is housed within my vessel with diminishing odds of escape from my manufactured walls.

Her eyes brim with tears that we shed together, or we would, if I could only cry.

As a child, she would to encourage me to yield a stuck tape with swift blows to my sides and top, demanding compliance, only to quietly admonish herself and apologize afterward. Her tender heart was too compassionate to allow her anger to go unchecked even towards seemingly inanimate objects.

Her head dips, accepting defeat and yet another unsuccessful attempt at coaxing me to relinquish her childhood once and for all. She pulls herself from the tv console I inhabit alongside devices far more advanced and years younger. “It’s okay, bud. Thanks for trying,” she sighs as she pats my top reassuringly, with a softness and gentle nature most reserve for those who possess the ability to communicate.

Just then, something inside my body clicks into place, and I feel a sense of relief flood my system. A crucial component returns where it belongs, and I find myself lowering pulleys long since trapped by malfunction. She spins on her heels and clamors to kneel before me hearing the familiar sound I make when properly reset.

“What was that? What just happened?” Her speech is hurried, and her eyes search for invisible answers, fearing for the worst.

I long for speech, to beg her to try again, to reassure her the tape- precious and irreplaceable- sits freed and ready to be retrieved. We stare at one another for a long moment, my screams unheard but seemingly felt. A new hope graces her features as she reaches to press ‘eject’ once more.

Squeals of jubilation fill the living room as I finally expel the home movie whose memories I have hoarded unintentionally for years.

“You did it! OH MY GOD! You did it!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!” Her tears of relief and gratitude fall on my facing as she showers me with praise. I thank her for her steadfast faith, for trying each week despite the threat of failure heavy at our every attempt. Though I know she’s held onto me for the tape she now cradles, I can’t help but feel a kinship with her. We share a love for years passed, replaying life as it once was to cope with the ever evolving future.

She returns her beloved recordings to a waiting sleeve, primed to protect her VHS, like friends reunited. Her grandfather’s fading nickname “Raz”, like a calling card on all his tapes, sits facing out so she can see it as she cleans each Sunday morning. She places the tape on my top, smiling at us both- a near-ancient pair of defunct companions, kept alive by love and longing.