We are strange friends

We are Strange Friends

We are strange friends, to be sure, very different in so many ways. True, we are employed by the same company and share the same office, but the work that we do is not a bit alike. Earl is the IT department all on his own. I’m not very good with computers. Never have been. Never will be. My skills are more in organizing meetings, and getting people to talk to each other comfortably and coherently

           Yet Earl and I share some of the same interests. In particular, we both love to watch old science fiction movies. We have even memorized our favourite lines from movies we especially like. As my name is Dave, he loves saying the lines that come from the very human-like computer Hal: “I’m afraid Dave. Dave my mind is going. I can feel it.” Those lines come from 2001: A Space Odyssey, an Arthur C. Clarke movie that came out way back in 1968, when few people knew about computers, and there was something of a fear that many people had about a future with them as major players.

A Sad Visiting Time

But now is a very sad time for us. I am visiting him in the hospital. Earl has tuberculosis, which he neglected to tell his doctor, and therefore it is going to be terminal. I walk into his room and see that he is awake, but only barely so. Beside him is a computer, not very surprising.

I am surprised, however, when he says, “Dave, this computer is for you. It is not quite ready yet. We will talk now, but come back about an hour afterwards and pick it up. It will be fully prepared then.”

We do not say much. More time is spent looking at each other with tears in our eyes.

When I leave, I tell the nurse that I will be back in about an hour to pick up the computer. She gives me a look of not understanding, and simply says “okay.”

An Hour Later

I go to the hospital cafeteria, a cheerless place, with hushed conversations, and nurse a cup of coffee (I might prefer to have doctored it) like they would throw me out once it was finished. When the hour is up I head for Earl’s room. There is a frenzy of activity there, a machine in his room is making the ‘flat line’ sound, and I realize that my friend Earl has died. Before I am a summarily kicked out of the room by the doctor, the nurse hands me the computer and I leave with a quiet ‘thank you.’.

The Computer and I at Home

           When I arrive at home, the first thing that I do is connect the computer and turn it on, wondering what will be so special about it. When I turn it on, what sounds like Earl’s voice broadcasts the words from 2001: A Space Odyssey: “I’m afraid Dave. Dave my mind is going. I can feel it.” Somehow I am not surprised. Earl must have programmed it to say that in the hour that we were apart, something to remember him by. Nice touch Earl.

           Enough for reminiscing. I have to transfer some files and programs from my now ‘old computer’, to my ‘new and improved’ model. This is not something that I expect that I will have an easy time doing, especially with the kind of complex programs that Earl could concoct.

           As I begin to embark on that transfer, I hear Earl’s voice saying “Don’t do it that way Dave. This is what you must do. Listen very carefully”. And, as he would invariably do in the office when such a situation arose, he spoke slowly, and with basic English words, all of the instructions that I needed to follow. He always explained to me much better than all the pre-programmed experts who speak way too quickly, and with too many esoteric names and assumptions of your prior knowledge.

           So I listen carefully to Earl’s voice, and get it right. He is still giving me sound advice even though he is no more. I wonder whether there would be other such messages spoken in his voice for other things I might need to know.

           The more I work with that computer, the more I get used to the spoken directions coming from the voice of my late friend Earl. I like it, although sometimes I can picture him sitting on a chair beside me. I even once or twice have looked over as if expecting to see him standing beside me.

           Some of the messages are kind of bizarre. I would be just about to initiate a function that would be in far beyond my depth in computer knowledge. Just before I put my finger on the keys, I hear Earl’s voice telling me first what not to do, which of course I am just about to do, and then, more slowly, what it is that I should do to get it right. It is like Earl is a conscious presence in the computer, his knowledge of me informing what he would say.

I suppose that I should think of that as kind of creepy, but I don’t go there. I am just very glad that the voice is telling me how to do the job correctly. And that my friend’s voice is still to be heard.

A New Woman Enters My Life

           A new woman has just entered my life. We met at an office party that included people employed by the company, but who worked on other floors. About the only interesting aspect about me and my life at this time is that I have a computer especially designed to give me verbal instructions with a friend’s voice. So I told her about that and how it had been given to me by a friend who had recently died, his last work making this particular computer special. I did not expect the response that I got from her. She said, “I’d like to see, no, actually hear that computer.” I’m a little out of practice with relationships, but I still said to her, “Do you want to see and hear it tonight?” She grabbed my right hand with both of her hands and uttered a very insistent ‘YES’.

           She followed me in her car to my house. We both ran to the door. I made us both some coffee, and we then went to my home office, and I turned on the computer. I then proceeded to deliberately make a mistake that I had made before and had learned after how to do correctly. Then the computer spoke, as I expected that it would. “You should know this. You learned to do it correctly only two days ago.” 

           Elsie, that’s her name, and I laughed and laughed. After that we sat down on a nearby couch, and I told her about how close Earl and I had been as friends, even though we were quite different in a number of ways.. She replied with what I too was thinking. “It is like your friend is inside your computer. I have never heard of anything like that before. You are fortunate.”

           We both had to go to work on the next day, so we soon parted company. But not before she gave me a rather passionate kiss, right in front of the computer. I walked her to her car, and we kissed again. She then reminded me of what floor her office was on. I did likewise for my office.

           After I watched her car until it disappeared, I went to my home office to turn off the computer. Just as I was reaching for it, I heard Earl’s voice say, “Don’t let this one get away Dave. She’s really nice.” I stared for a few moments then finally understood what was going on.

           “Well Earl, I don’t know how you did it, but it seems that it isn’t just your voice that you programmed into the computer, but your consciousness as well.”

           “I knew that you would discover that eventually Dave. That’s why I recorded the message from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was what I was feeling at the time of the transfer. We are strange friends, but we still can be good friends.”