Al’arc knelt quietly by the burned out connection watching the birds as they turned and tumbled in formation in the sky. This was his problem; too easily distracted. But watching the birds filled him with stillness. He couldn’t understand how they did it and watched carefully to see whether one began to turn before the others, or perhaps the turns and spirals were an expression of the formation itself as it moved through the air, the way one car on a highway influences the others around it as they influence it in return, the whole system interconnected in so many invisible ways.
The call had been logged in the small hours. Al had always been an early riser, not enjoying the late-night social activities popular among his friends and often found himself returning home to eat the meals an earlier Al had cooked and left for him in the fridge, read a little of the book by his cot and then drift into sleep.
He slept hard and would wake after four or five hours, blearily crawl beneath the bed to retrieve his eye mask from where it had inevitably fallen in the most inaccessible corner and rinse his mouth with water from the outlet in the small kitchen. Stumbling about in the darkness, trying to avoid waking himself too fully.
Small tasks complete he would climb gratefully back beneath the still-warm blanket and think about something uninteresting until he could drift back to sleep for another couple of hours. He often felt better rested then than he would when the alarm sounded at its usual time.
Last night the slow blink of a notification greeted him as he came back into the bedroom from the kitchen. He slowed a little, curious as to what the notification might be, proud he could let it be until he awoke later.
Nestled in the blankets he had gently pulled the eye mask over his head and settled it across his face. There was a perfect place for it, where it could hardly be felt at all as it lay in front of his eyes, yet it stopped almost all of the light which had begun to stream in through the window.
He enjoyed opening his eyes then, to gaze in the complete darkness at what seemed to be a vast space, yet he knew was a layer of plastic and cotton fibres just a few milimetres from the tips of his eyelashes.
It was ever a short-lived pleasure as the small motions of the muscles in his face as he opened his eyes and looked around was soon enough to disturb the mask and ruin the illusion. A crack of light would appear and with an inner sigh he would settle back more comfortably on the pillow, reset the mask to its proper place and leave his eyes closed and motionless beneath it, hoping to find sleep.
Sleep had, today at least, been elusive
Sleep had, today at least, been elusive. For while his mind did not turn to it immediately, wandering past thoughts of properly washing his toothbrush, and ordering the new seal his clothes washer desperately needed. Small random thoughts, all loosely themed around maintenance and other routine tasks which needed his attention when it was available. Connection made, he began to think about the notification.
The systems were mature, so mature they very rarely failed by themselves, and where there was a risk they might, they or another neighbouring system or device would helpfully send a notification well in advance, so they could be repaired or replaced as needed.
Notifications like this one usually arrived during the day, when the others were awake. They may not like to admit it, or even think about it but they were the principal, or perhaps only cause of unscheduled maintenance calls. Rough handling, misconfiguration, abuse, all took their toll and Al would pack up his tools and walk around fixing the things they had broken.
Which meant someone had been here last night. A conclusion which, like most conclusions, only created more questions.