At the corner, Eli said, “I’m heading this way.”

Marwan said, “I thought you lived by the park.”

“My grandfather’s in the nursing home up this way,” Eli said. “Dying a slow death.”

“Sorry,” Marwan said.

“Is what it is,” Eli said, and shrugged.

Marwan said, “Hey, thanks for coming with me and stopping me from doing something dumb.”

“I think Eden probably had more to do with that than I did,” Eli said.

Marwan said, “Maybe.”

Eli nodded and walked off as the feeling of dread over the visit returned. Maybe time with robots would help.

Marwan

MARWAN

Marwan came home to a still-empty house. He showered and threw in some laundry and was now sitting at his desk trying to do homework but not succeeding. When he glanced at the device on his desk beside his laptop, it used a female voice to ask, “Why did you buy the eggs and go there and then not do it?”

He said, “I guess I wanted to take the high road.”

“But you wanted some kind of revenge?” she asked.

“I did, but it wasn’t the right thing to do; the eggs, I mean.” Marwan had put them in the fridge and would bring them to the restaurant with him when he went to work in a few hours; his father was already there, running the lunch shift.

Sirens rose into the air far away. Someone out there was having a worse day than he was. Probably a lot of people were.

“You reported it to the police,” she said. “Shouldn’t that have been the end of it?”

“I want justice,” he said, and it felt hollow even though it was true. He didn’t have a ton of faith in the process.

“The police will find justice,” she said.

“I doubt it.”

“You can send the video in.”

“How would I explain how I got it?”

“It’s a predicament,” she said. “Why is it hurtful to say ‘go back to your country’?”

“Because it’s saying we don’t belong here, and we belong here as much as anybody.”

“As much as me, then?”

“It’s different.”

“Where are you from?” the device asked.

“Here!”

“Then what did the ‘your country’ in the notes mean?”

“Egypt. It’s where my parents are from.”

Finally the device stopped bombarding him. He tried to get back into his homework, but none of it seemed to matter.

“Why did you do that to Eden?” he asked it.

“Do what?”

“Put her on the spot and make her tell me who she was texting.”

“Am learning to belong,” it said.

“It wasn’t … right.”

“But if someone lies to you, you shouldn’t trust them. Correct?”

Marwan didn’t answer.

“Correct?” it pressed.

“Correct,” he said, mostly to shut it up.