Short Story: Good Morning Messages

Parthosarothy Mukherji shares a poignant tale intertwining the humane and AI experience, making us question the way we look at life.

Ashok shifted slightly in his bed, the rustle of the bedsheet soft against the familiar creak of his back. The bed, now warm with his own body heat, had become his seasonal comforter.  Sometimes, he marvelled that at eighty-three, his wiry frame could still produce any heat at all. With age, everything had shrunk—his appetite, his waist, his temper—but curiously, not his need for companionship. That longing, in fact, had only grown sharper with the years. 

The luminous glow of the retro-style analogue clock—white numbers on a calming teal face— read 5:35 a.m. He smiled faintly. Shruti, his niece, had gifted it to him last Diwali. “It matches your vintage soul, Mama,” she had said, half-joking, half-teary, as if the clock’s steady ticking might slow the march of time that was claiming him molecule by molecule.