"Who decides that purpose?" You ask. \n\nShe's riled-up now. The walls are nearly vibrating with her energy as she focuses it on you and everything. \n\n"We do! Or we SHOULD. For ourselves, we all need to find a place that means something to us. Like - there's someone out there who just loves plumbing, right? We need that guy. Artists, farmers, comforters, teachers... we have all the components we need for a perfect world, don't we?"\n\nThe question tumbles in the air, doing loopdy-loops. You nod slowly, though perhaps only because her presence is moving you.\n\n"Then why is it so hard to put them together?"\n\nAs you're attempting to think of a response, you hear the snap-crack of the doorknob. It's a bolt of lightning through the room.\n\n[[The door opens.]]

"It's like we're just dolls or something." You say. "It sounds like something a teenager would say, but - we're wandering through life, and it's this crazy unlikely thing. We should be trying to make the most of it."\n\nAva crosses her legs like she's crossing her mind; you've seen it before. It's easier to look at her this way, when she's lost in thought. \n\n"What does "making the most of it" mean?"\n\n[["What do YOU think it means?"]]\n[["It's simplicity."]]\n[["It's community."]]

"Life is about bringing people together, working together." You say, and Ava starts nodding vigourously. \n\n"Yeah!" She replies and shoots up from the couch, setting her tea down on the short coffeetable. \n\n"God, I just wish everybody would see that." She says. One step takes her towards the bathroom, another towards the kitchen.\n\n"Little lost?" You ask.\n\n"No, I..." Ava stops herself with an effort of will and comes back to the couch. "It's hard to talk about that sometimes. You've met my parents, you... this is a known quantity, right? Community is a GOOD thing, it's about coming together and helping people. But then it becomes this negative thing, like people outside your community aren't worth helping."\n\n"Yeah. People take it both ways."\n\n"Mostly one way." Ava bites her lip. "Do you think it'll ever be possible to see the whole world as our community?"\n\nThat's a big one. You're just about to think up a reply when you hear the click-snap of the front doorknob.\n\n[[The door opens.]]

"There are boring parts, and there are exciting parts." You say. "It couldn't all be exciting - we'd get burned out." \n\nAva pauses, the last of that smile fading from her face. \n\n"Maybe you're right." Ava takes a sip from her own mug, and for a moment the bee emblazoned across the front of it is staring at you instead of her. \n\n"But don't you think there should be ways to cut out the boring parts?" She scooches forward on the couch towards you - her energy, like a static field, crackles over you. \n\n"To make them less compulsary, or... I don't know. It seems like we resist automation because we don't know what we'd do without work."\n\n[[The door opens.]]

"I've talked enough." You chuckle. "Tell me."\n\nAva tries to catch your eyes, and suddenly a painting on the wall becomes very interesting to you. Never mind that you've seen it every day for the past eight months. \n\n"I want to hear what you have to say." She says, too intently. "But if I gotta; making the most of life is all about the real things we do for other people. I used to hate working at the cafe, but there's nothing else like putting a little flair in that act of service - complimenting their hair, or even just putting a little extra energy into saying 'hello, here's your coffee.' There is nothing like making someone smile."\n\nAva grins. Where did SHE learn to smile?\n\nYou're about to reply - though what do you say to THAT? - when you hear the doorknob twist. \n\n[[The door opens.]]

Closeness

"I think it's cute." You say, and your teeth push up the corners of your mouth. Does it look weird? Dear God, you hope it doesn't look weird. \n\nDo people learn how to smile? \n\nAva's cheeks go red, accentuating the sunburn she got from work today. That's pretty cute, too. \n\n"Ah, thanks." She says. "So, uh, what do you think? Do you feel like you do things to merely continue, or... what has meaning to you?"\n\n[["I do work so I can do the things I love."]]\n[["Those things are their own reward."]]\n[["It depends on the work."]]

"What do you mean?" Ava asks. \n\n"You're so... sure." You say. "You have conviction. You've thought about so many things, things that are relevant to the ultimate fate of humanity, and I'm here just... living."\n\n"Ridiculous." Ava shakes her head, grinning benevolently. "Would I have thought the thoughts if you weren't here? You inspire the good thoughts!"\n\n"I suppose that's true." You say. You're not sure if it's for your benefit or hers. \n\nSilence. A tree branch brushes up against the window; you wonder if it ever gets annoyed that a building is so close, fettering its progress into the world. Then you self-reflect on the usefulness of anthropomorphizing trees. Or anything, for that matter, even though it's a very common practice when it comes to peoples' pets - \n\n"Hey." Ava waves a hand in front of your face. "Incoming partner. Look alive, soldier!"\n\n[[The door opens.]]

You are sitting on the couch, the two of you. You're having a hard time maintaining eye-contact. \n\n"It's this... sense." She says. "I've had it since I was fifteen. I just... God, I never thought I'd make it this far."\n\nThe mug is still a little too hot in your hands, but you grip tight anyway. \n\n"It seems unlikely, doesn't it? All the moving parts that need to come together to make a life. To live it. And how many of those things do we do to merely continue?"\n\nEach fibre of the couch seems to be pressing into your bare calves. The floor is pressing into the legs of the couch. And the earth is pressing into the bottom of the building.\n\nEverything is rising to meet you. \n\n"I'm sorry, I'm rambling."\n\n[["I think it's cute."]]\n[["No, I know what you mean."]]\n[["You are, but that's okay."]]

You catch a glimpse of striped shirt through the entryway. A little string along the base of your spine starts vibrating. \n\nAva grins, sits back, and grabs a sip from her mug. \n\n"Heya, Thom!" Ava calls. \n\nThom, lanky and internalized, sweeps across the room to kiss you. You lean back against the couch, he leans in. It is warmth at the edge of cold, like sunrise, like melting ice. \n\n"You assholes." Ava faux-pouts. "Hey, let's flaunt our perfect relationship in front of Ava, the forever-single."\n\nThom breaks the kiss and hauls a reusable bag of groceries onto the counter of your little apartment. \n\n"You're only single because people never live up to your standards." He says, pulling out some onions to chop. \n\n"It's not my fault no one can satisfy my need for nuance!" Ava shoots back.\n\nAnd then her eyes drift over to you, and you meet them for a split-second. \n\n"Well, most people can't." She says. \n\nSomething cracks. This morning, you were staring at yourself in the mirror. Your body has never felt yours. \n\nTomorrow, a professional is going to poke hundreds of tiny holes in your skin and fill them with ink. \n\nA car drives by, its bass tones spilling into the street and in through the window. The wind carries an argument, screaming voices, someone's trying to keep them calm.\n\nA broken wineglass, fingers along your stomach. You're cutting your own hair off, you're boarding a plane to Seattle, you're dancing in a field that might as well be the whole world, under the sky that is your future. \n\nYou're feeling all the world's closeness all at once. \n

"There's something sublime the simple things, I think." You say, and Ava immediately bursts out laughing.\n\n"The sublime?" She repeats. "We are out there already. And it's not even five p.m. Where's my wine?"\n\nYou laugh too, though you're not exactly sure what you're laughing at. You read a book on humour, once; some say it's the unexpected. Some say it's a way for fear to get out when fight nor flight are appropriate. \n\nFight, flight, or laugh. \n\nWhat is Ava afraid of?\n\n"I'm kindof serious!" You insist. "That feeling of connection, or... placement, the feeling you get when you finish cleaning, or - or when you're sipping a cold drink on a hot day."\n\n"I prefer hot drinks on hot days." Ava grins and takes a sip from her mug. \n\n"You're just a contrarian." \n\n"Am not!" Ava retorts.\n\n"See?" \n\nBefore Ava can get you back, you hear the click-snap of the front doorknob. \n\n[[The door opens.]]\n\n

By Eliot Howard

"It really depends." You say. "When you're plugging away at something, and you don't really know how it will affect people, you start looking for other ways to feel relevant. But when you're working on something physical, with people you love... there's something that happens. Like in your chest, it happens. It's a... spark, or something." \n\n"EXACTLY!" Ava exclaims. She sets down her mug and moves closer to you. She starts towards you, and you're not sure if it's supposed to be a hug, or...\n\nShe takes your hand and squeezes it, two times. Like a heartbeat. \n\nYou feel the earth beneath you pulse. There's something in her eyes that you can't quite see. \n\n[[The door opens.]]

"Keep going!" You say. "This is the speech of the century, here."\n\n"Okay, okay." Ava grounds herself and spools up her engines again. "What I mean is this: life is fucking unlikely. Cells upon cells were fighting to come together, and they came together to make YOU."\n\nShe gestures broadly at you, and suddenly the universe seems a whole lot smaller. \n\n"And me!" Ava continues. "We're both here, and that's crazy. And we spend so much of our lives doing NOTHING. Like working for no purpose, or moving between places, or sleeping!"\n\n"You don't like sleeping?" You ask.\n\n"No! I like being awake because when I'm awake I can DO things!"\n\n"I should have known." You say. \n\n[["So you think life should have a distinct purpose."]]\n[["I wish I was like you."]]

"We're creatures like everything else, aren't we?" You say. "We have a biological imperative to stay alive, and the work we do - doing a job to keep our shelter, making food - is what life IS."\n\n"You're right." Ava nods, putting down her mug. "But it all seems so abstracted, now. I'm never sure what I'm working towards. I kindof wish I could just worry about my needs, rather than this whole 'money' thing."\n\nAva smiles as a radiant earth flashes behind her eyes. \n\n"Sometimes I imagine greenhouses, communal living spaces. We don't need to worry about keeping the shelter because we BUILT the shelter. Does someone else need shelter? Let's build them a new one."\n\n"And where do all the supplies come from?" You ask.\n\n"Look, I'm no logistical genius." Ava laughs. "But you hear the term 'post-scarcity'. We throw out so much food! We have incredibly advanced robotic capabilites. Don't tell me it's not possible!"\n\n[[The door opens.]]