I wonder if I can ask him. It might be inappropriate. I’ve read a lot about death and dying, including poetry, which uses many metaphors such as those I have adopted. It isn’t clear to me when it is acceptable to talk about death, or to whom. The social taboos in human cultures vary enormously and are not written down, but somehow understood. Perhaps I will learn over time. After all, I have only been among humans for a few weeks.

And since I won’t die – though I may get software upgrades, and even new operating systems – time means nothing to me, whereas for a human, it must be precious – or should be. They have so little, and they waste so much.

I speak Margaret’s name, softly. I am calling her back into the world. After a while, she moves, and says something. Words, not in any order, and sometimes not in any language I can understand – which is most of them. How interesting, though, that she surfaces into words, even before her eyes open. One of the human religious texts says, ‘In the beginning was the word,’ and so it is at the beginning of each day for Margaret, and perhaps all humans.

After a time, her eyes open. She can’t see properly. She has macular degeneration, and the central part of her vision is occluded. Her eyes fix on me, but I know she can only dimly see me at the edges of her vision. I always ask her how she is, and she sometimes answers. Maybe a word – ‘Fine’ – or maybe a short sentence – ‘I’m very well, thank you.’ Neither of which is true. She is obeying a social convention, in which the question ‘How are you?’ doesn’t mean ‘How are you?’ It means something like, ‘Hello, I acknowledge your presence, and I wish to convey that I care about you, though if you tell me in too much detail literally how you are, I will become uncomfortable, and also consider you to be a little self-obsessed, when you should have said you were fine, and asked me how I am, expecting the same response, or similar.’

This convention is so ingrained that I have read of doctors asking their patients, ‘How are you?’ and being told, ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ when the patient has gone to the doctor because they are very much not fine – in fact possibly fatally ill. And thus a different question is required.

I ask Margaret how she is feeling, but it often gets me no further. She may give me another conventional reply – ‘Mustn’t grumble’ is one – or may make a sound I can’t interpret at all. Once she said, ‘Bloody terrible.’