Work Text:
For a long time, the objects’ existences are defined by utility. When you need them, you use them. Until then, they lie in wait—hoping, praying, that you’ll need something. A cup of coffee, a 15lb weight, a bed to sleep in. Some of the objects are a bit luckier than others: your phone and your bed see you each day without fail, closely followed by hygienic items and objects needed for hydration or nourishment. The others are fortunate to see you at all. Your gaze will pass right over them: the ship in the bottle on your mantle, the puzzle piece stuffed in your desk drawer. The smaller ones can slip into crevices and never be found again.
It’s a frightening thought.
They’ve watched you from the moment you moved into this house. You with your cardboard boxes and determination. The walls were bare at first, the shelves empty. But you worked on decorating, on making the house a home for yourself. And the objects all watched as you began to flourish, landing a new job and leaving the house more often. Meanwhile, they serve their purpose: keeping you clean, safe, warm, fed, comfortable, happy. The objects wonder, idly, if you will ever notice them. But they don’t dare to hope. This silent observation, coupled with occasional use, is enough.
Until one day, when you receive a package. It’s a strange delivery: a drone crashes into multiple windows before eventually breaking through the glass of the front door and dropping a gift on your doormat. Many of them watch in confusion as you open the package. Some shudder in impatience; others shake their heads in disbelief.
You don’t notice any of these movements, because you can’t see them. The objects aren’t quite sure why they’re stuck in this sort of limbo—they just know you can’t perceive them. Still, they watch carefully as you unearth a pair of aviator glasses from a pile of packing peanuts. You look confused, staring down at them for a long moment before putting them on.
It’s not a magical moment, not necessarily. For a few moments, you’re just glancing around in evident bewilderment. You’ve just been given these glasses without asking for them, after all. But you still put them on, which means you’re granted the ability to see and perceive them. If you choose to see and perceive them, that is. Skylar—the woman embodying the glasses—explains all of this to you, guiding you through the process of animating them before your eyes. And you do so, hesitantly. You meet Dorian, the doors scattered throughout the house; Maggie, the magnifying glass; Johnny Splash, the shower. Despite their vastly different personalities, they share one commonality: they want you here. They want you to speak to them, to acknowledge their existence and give them a purpose that’s more than mere need fulfillment.
It soon becomes clear that you only have a certain amount of energy to socialize with them. It makes sense: you have a life outside the house. Still, some of them almost wish… that things were different. That you were confined to this house, that those aviators—“dateviators”—were molded to your very skin and forced you to always see them.
At first, the dateviators do seem to intrigue you. You take time to wander the house, searching for even the most antisocial and prickly of objects to speak with. It’s like a sort of game for you: finding all 100 of them. You speak to Maggie when you need hints or clues; you return to some of them for more conversation.
But your interest is fleeting. You start making them promises you don’t keep. You tell them you’ll return, but you don’t. You say that you’ll bring people over, to make the house feel less empty—but you don’t. You give them just enough to be momentarily satisfied, to be deluded into thinking they aren’t mere decorations and accessories.
Slowly but surely, you wear the dateviators less and less. Suddenly you’re only talking to one or two of them a day, instead of the four or five conversations you usually had energy for. Then you’re not speaking to any of them. You don’t speak to Kopi to make coffee. You use the bathroom without acknowledging any of them. You swing the closet doors open with disregard; you scuff your sneakers on the ground. You leave many of the objects to collect dust.
It shouldn’t be surprising when you start to neglect the dateviators altogether. The objects write it off as a simple omission—you had a long day at work. You’ll visit them tomorrow.
But the next day is the same. Soon, it isn’t tomorrow, but eventually. Eventually starts to lose certainty. They aren’t sure if you will ever come back. If they even want you to return. (They do.)
A lazy morning brings their downfall. They don’t recognize it until it’s too late.
You’re tired. You spent the majority of the previous day scrolling through your phone, and then sleeping. You’re blinking exhaustion from your eyes. You remain in bed for a while, before finally summoning the energy to get up and have breakfast.
You head to the kitchen, starting up the coffee machine and throwing some frozen waffles in the toaster. The machines buzz as they work. You frown, crossing your arms over your chest as a shiver runs across you. It’s cold in the house today.
You think you remember leaving a sweatshirt in the living room last night. After a few moments of contemplation, you can recall that you left it on the couch. You head over tiredly, a mild pain beginning to cluster in your temple.
You’re preoccupied, lost in thought and distracted. You don’t notice the dateviators lying discarded on the floor. You’re moving through the space absentmindedly, as you have a million times before. One step, then another. Your sweatshirt lies draped over the back of the couch. You reach for it.
Snap.
You look down. The dateviators are crushed beneath your foot. You blink down at the glasses. Every object in the house seems to choke on its breath, especially when you gather the shards and just leave them on the coffee table.
Some of them hold out hope: you will fix the glasses, surely. You’ll piece the shattered lenses back together, so you can see them all again. Right?
Other objects aren’t so sure. The skeptics, the pessimists, and the ones familiar with rejection… They know the truth. You will not fix them. The glasses have lost their novelty; the objects have lost your interest. And, in turn, they’ve lost what little opportunity they were given. A brief glimpse of freedom, snatched away in the blink of an eye.
The house is nearly silent, as always. Their grief can only be heard in the smallest of noises: the hum of the electric appliances, the drip of water escaping the faucet, the curtains billowing in the breeze. There is nothing left for them now. They are spectators once more.
Discontent lingers in the air. Frustration, helplessness, despair. All 100 objects are so incredibly different, but they share this strange ache.
Still, some of the objects can’t abandon hope. They attempt to beckon you closer: they shift slightly into your path, they try to capture your attention. But you are stubborn in your ignorance. You don’t notice these inconsistencies. And eventually, even the most persistent ones stop trying. They accept the inevitable: you’ve moved on. You’ve forgotten them. Your polite smiles, your attention… All of it was mere tolerance. You saw them—until you didn’t.
That’s the funny thing about their personhood: you awarded it to them.
…And you took it away just as easily.