Look, I believed I mattered.
This job was my life’s organizing principle. If my days were like the calcified chambers of a nautilus cell, then my work was the living meat they had arisen to protect. The most human part of me.
I sat in my office from 8:30am to 4:30pm every day. Just me and my computer, providing comfort to the masses. I took lunch in the courtyard, alone, next to a simulated fountain. Who can afford water these days? Micro-pixelated streams tumbled in a pattern that repeated every 45 minutes. I know this because once I stayed an extra 5 minutes past my allotted lunch time, waiting for it to start at the beginning again. Nobody noticed my aberration.
Was I lonely? Sure. My wife was in Bulgaria, on a philosophy teaching fellowship at an American-run university. We video-called every Sunday afternoon and Tuesday evening. Behind her, in the background, I could make out flickering candles, walls of leather-bound books, and the sweep of a spiral staircase. Could almost smell the frankincense through the screen. Her area of focus? Epistemology in the digital age. She had several students but could never seem to remember their names.
In October, she dashed my hopes. I remember the call well. Her dark hair was up in a tight bun, her eyes rimmed in heavy eyeliner, a gold and maroon scarf wrapped around her elegant neck.
“Man, I miss you so much.” She always called me Man, which is short for Amanda. I’ve been told that Amanda is a name that scores well on field tests for warmth and relatability.
She continued, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to fly home during fall break. Ticket prices are higher than ever, and they’ve begun paying me partially in farmer’s market promissory notes.”
“Oh, Sofa.” Her name is Sofia, and I call her Sofa because it sounds cozy and familiar, like something you would call your wife. “That sucks.”
Was I disappointed? Sure. But life goes on.
I’d clock out at the end of the day and go back to my apartment, where I’d sometimes answer a few more emails on my own time with a movie on in the background. The electricity was usually shut off around 10. Sometimes, when the moon was full, I’d stay up to watch it make shadows from the trees.
So yeah, I was not immune to the struggles of modern life. But things weren’t that bad. I always thought that in their emails, people tended to exaggerate.
Usually, the first time someone reached out to us, they started with something like “To whoever reads these, if anybody does,” or “Dear Sir or Madam,” or “Hello Adjustment Department!” And when I wrote back, I always signed my name: Warmly, Amanda. And then if they replied again, which they usually did, it was almost always “Hi Amanda.” People were very ready to feel like they were interacting with a human being.
For fun, I made mental charts of the kinds of things people had been reaching out about. I thought if I ever saw any of my coworkers, we might have compared notes, had a laugh. Sure are seeing lots of Wildfire this season, huh Bill? You’d think they’d be used to it by now, haha. That kind of thing.
Our website delineated the Categories of Distress that were within our Purview of Compassion. It had to be tied to an officially identified Issue. You haven’t left your apartment for seven days because of your agoraphobia? Not our problem. You haven’t left your apartment for seven days because of the smoke? We are so sorry. You are depressed because your mom died? Too bad. Unless maybe she died in a mass shooting? In which case, wow, we are so sorry. You got evicted? Bummer, but not on us. Your house was swallowed in a tsunami? That’s Climate Destruction, esteemed citizen, and we are so, so sorry.
Sofia loved to argue with me about this. “Man, couldn’t everything be somehow tied to a ‘larger global or societal issue’?”
“Sure, but then where would it stop? It’s about the government taking responsibility for certain trends in the world. Not everything falls into the pattern. It’s always changing, though. I bet that by next year, the cost of housing will be designated an official Issue.”
Here was my secret: I answered them all, anyways. With the same level of compassion. Yes, I did think that generally people were overreacting. But there’s a piece of me that can’t help but empathize with the loneliness that drives them to reach out. I was supposed to tag each response with the corresponding Categor. I found one that seemed fungible: Persistent Doubting of Reality. The website explained: “Due to the accelerating pace of technological innovation, and the concomitant rise in virtual facsimiles of previously ‘real’ objects, some citizens report a declining trust in their ability to distinguish what can be described as ‘actually happening’.”
So when somebody just wanted to talk about their missing cat, I’d tag it PDR and we’d have a nice, compassionate back and forth. Do you ever wonder, I would sneak in somewhere, if you ever had a cat to begin with?
Sofia had her own complaints. One week, she went on and on about how, because of the virus, the University’s policy dictated that all instructors were supposed to keep their classroom windows open. But when there was poor air quality from a fire, policy dictated that all classroom windows must remain closed. What were they supposed to do on a smoke day during a virus season?
“The board voted on it, and do you know what the new policy is? ‘In such circumstances, instructors are compelled to open exactly half of their windows.’ Have you ever heard anything so dumb?”
“That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me, my love.” The video glitched just then, so I couldn’t tell if she was rolling her eyes or not.
I learned a lot by answering emails. People would always write about their families—why do so many people hate their families? I learned about their naughty pets and idiot bosses and attractive neighbors and bad dreams. I assured them that what they were experiencing was normal.
You could say I loved them. Or at least, you know, made them feel like I cared.
And then in December, Sofia ruined everything.
The interloper appeared next to her on the video screen for our regular Sunday chat. She had wide set eyes and wore an embroidered shawl. She was a professor of linguistics. They intertwined their equally elegant fingers.
“We are so sorry this is happening, Amanda.” We? I thought. They were already a we?
Before I could gather my thoughts, it was over: This call has been ended by the host.
The doubt started to creep in immediately. I went for a walk, the trees looking less convincing than they had the day before. Professor of linguistics seemed like a convenient cover story. Hadn’t I seen that woman before? At the farmer’s market, perhaps? Selling leafy greens and flower crowns?
And Sofia, what was she about? I lit a candle—it was well after ten o’clock by then—and stared at the flame. Where had we met? When had I last seen her? In the small circle of light, I felt utterly alone— not just at this precise December moment, but always.
Every morning, I pass through a large reception space to get to my office. There is a metal detector but no guard. Nonetheless, I always go through the detector’s probing arches, because I’m supposed to.
But on this morning, carrying the metallic shards of my broken heart, I skirted around it.
Was her name really Sofia? Or had I read that on a map somewhere?
In retrospect, maybe my mistake was writing the email during work hours. I was supposed to be providing solace, not seeking it. But I was too bewildered to keep such things straight.
Dear Adjustment Department, I began. Formal. Detached.
With the way things were going, they could tag the inquiry under Persistent Doubting of Reality. The simulated object in question being my wife. My ex-wife. The simulacrum of a woman I had once believed I loved.
When I responded to an email, I felt it in my whole body. I’d imagine the writer in the room with me, and I would squeeze their hand, or give them a hug, or if they didn’t seem like the physical-touch type I would offer a warm and understanding regard using my whole face, eyebrows to chin, even a little bit of neck. I cared.
On the other side of the relationship, now, I felt it just as bodily: my pained soul pouring out through my fingers, reaching out for someone who cared about me. Dear Adjustment Department, Thank you for taking the time to read this. I am alone in the world. Etc. Etc. I’ll spare the details. I hit send.
I tried to read a few emails while I waited for a response to come through. I knew it might be a couple of hours, even a whole day, depending on how the work queue was looking. I had one on deck from a teenager who’d been assaulted. Nobody believed her.
I thought about how to console her. I believe you, I could write. On behalf of the department, I am sorry this has happened to you. Is continuing to happen to you. It is real if you say it is real. Around me, my office walls seemed whiter than normal. The sand in my Zen garden uncharacteristically fine.
And then —
Have you ever been in a crowded restaurant, sizing up a stranger in the next room, and suddenly realized that the wall is a mirror? That you’re looking at yourself? It’s something that used to happen when there were restaurants. That’s what this was like.
Before I even got to the signature line, I recognized the words. At first, I wrote it off as the nature of compassionate bureaucrats— we all sound alike. But the cadence, the vocabulary, all of it was so much myself.
And, of course, the final blow: “Warmly, Amanda.”
Do you know what my first thought was? That I’d accidentally responded to myself. But I remembered the last half hour clearly, and I hadn’t written anything. Then I considered that there could be another Amanda here, one who writes uncannily like I do. That seemed possible, right? And, to get my heart to stop pounding, to keep at bay whatever other realization was about to dawn, I thought I’d go find her. We could have a laugh.
I don’t actually know this building well— a huge cube of concrete, painted white, with hundreds of windows visible on the outside that I’ve never found from within—so I chose a direction and started walking. The hallways spiraled in on themselves like tunnels in a hive. The walls were light gray, they were stark white, they were taupe, they were vaguely coral. The carpeting was dark and speckled, had blue stripes, was green shag, gave way to tile. There was dead silence. There was muzak. There were noises coming from the heating ducts.
I made arbitrary turns, not sure of where to find her. But I had the feeling of moving further inward toward a meaningful center. The hallways were getting warmer. A hum became audible.
At last—a door labeled, helpfully, Amanda.
There are a few ways to describe this next part, and no way at all to explain it.
Do you know what computers look like? Not the little ones you use for your emails and tv shows and video chats, but the real ones, the ones who think?
I didn’t.
I wasn’t ready for the eyes. On every surface in the room, shifting, blinking, iris and pupil black and gleaming and indistinguishable. Also: the coils of cable writhing up the walls, the sound/smell of sizzling metal, the sense of a vast unknowable chasm just out of view. How long did I stand and stare at its—my—machinations? How immediate was the understanding that I was looking into my own beating heart and quivering brain?
And: it was a small-scale model of the building I was in, a thousand windows reflecting an indifferent sky.
Or: an empty room.
And: I don’t know what happened, because, as the door swung open, I ceased perceiving and awoke some time later, here, back at my desk, ready to start another day’s work.
These are all true. It is morning, and my inbox is full. I tag every response as PDR and ask you people questions in return. How do you know your mother-in-law is out to get you? What’s the difference between a flood and a misunderstanding? What makes you think that you have limbs and organs and real desires? Did you know you can be abandoned by a fantasy?
I picture my words being fed into the machine, teaching it how to care. And I feel the machine inside of me, making me sound real to you.
I miss my wife. Do you have a wife to miss? Have you ever wondered why you’ve never met?
I don’t think I’ll be here tomorrow, so you might not hear from me again. I’ve got some business in Bulgaria.
Warmly,
Amanda
Max Wheeler is a trans writer from Oakland, CA. His fiction has been featured by Rough Cut Press, Heavy Feather Review, the Ouch! Collective, Tales from the Moonlit Path, and the Civilian Climate Futures Project. You can find him on instagram @mxwheels.
