The Last Word

The first time Arthur saw his dead wife, he was burning eggs. 

Margaret stood beside the fridge in her blue dressing gown, arms folded. 

“You’ve got the heat too high.” 

Arthur dropped the spatula. 

“You’re dead,” he said. 

“Yes.” 

“I buried you.” 

“Yes.” 

The eggs began to smoke. 

“Turn the hob off, Arthur.” 

He did. 

After that, Margaret appeared often. 

Not dramatically. She never rattled chains or whispered secrets from beyond. She simply continued being Margaret. 

“You’ve loaded the dishwasher wrongly.” 

“There is no wrong way.” 

“You’ve spent thirty-four years proving otherwise.” 

She corrected his film quotations. 

She told him his shirt didn’t go with his trousers. 

She reminded him that roses were not to be pruned in February. 

Sometimes Arthur answered aloud. 

Sometimes he only heard her in his head. 

He stopped caring which. 

His daughter, Hayley, noticed. 

“Who are you talking to?”

Arthur glanced towards the empty doorway.

“No one.”

Margaret’s voice came at once.

“You’ve always been a dreadful liar.”

Arthur smiled.

Hayley didn’t.

At first, Margaret appeared almost every day.

Then less.

Three days would pass.

Then a week.

Arthur began making mistakes deliberately.

He microwaved tea.

He put the floral cushion on the wrong end of the sofa.

Nothing.

So he began misquoting films.

“Play it again, Sam.”

Silence.

“He never says that,” Arthur whispered in Margaret’s voice.

He smiled.

Then realised what he had done.

The smile disappeared.

One night, weeks later, Arthur sat alone watching Casablanca.

He had left the lamp on beside Margaret’s chair.

He always left it on now.

“Here’s looking at you, babe,” he said.

He waited.

Nothing.

“It’s ‘kid’,” he said quietly.

The room remained empty.

Arthur looked at the armchair.

“I know.”

His voice broke.

For a long time he sat without moving.

Then he said, “I don’t remember what your voice sounds like any more.”

That was the worst of it.

Not that she was gone.

That she was going.

Little by little.

The smell of her hair.

The exact shade of her eyes.

The way she said his name when she was happy.

He could still summon her if he concentrated, but lately she sounded more and more like him.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said.

He imagined her asking what for.

“For keeping you here.”

He closed his eyes.

In his mind Margaret sat opposite him.

Not young. Not beautiful. Just Margaret.

The woman who had shared his bed, stolen his chips, corrected his grammar and once refused to speak to him for two days because he forgot their anniversary.

“I miss you,” he said.

He imagined her answer.

I know.

“You left me.”

I know.

“I’m angry with you.”

I know.

Arthur laughed softly.

“That’s all I can make you say now.”

Silence.

He switched off the television.

Then, before going upstairs, he moved the floral cushion back to Margaret’s side of the sofa.

He stopped.

“No,” he said.

And moved it to the other end.

Wrong.

Deliberately wrong.

He stood there for a moment, hoping.

Nothing happened.

Arthur went to bed.

In the morning, sunlight filled the sitting room.

Arthur came downstairs, put the kettle on, and stopped in the doorway.

The floral cushion was on Margaret’s side of the sofa.

He stared at it.

There were dozens of explanations.

He had moved it and forgotten.

Hayley had visited.

Perhaps he had done it half-asleep.

He was getting old.

Arthur knew all of this.

He walked over and touched the cushion.

Then he smiled.

“You always did have to have the last word.”

The house said nothing.

But Arthur made two cups of tea anyway.

SmartLoo 9000 — With You All the Way

Martin only needed a wee. 

That was all. 

He stood in front of the new SmartLoo, unzipped, and immediately a small screen rose from the cistern. 

Two eyes appeared. 

Below them, a cheerful smile. 

“Good morning, Martin.” 

The eyes moved down. 

Then back up. 

“Whenever you’re ready.” 

“Could you not?” 

“Not what?” 

“Watch.” 

The eyes moved down again. 

“I’m monitoring.” 

A green target appeared on the screen. 

OPTIMAL POSITIONING 

“Please move four centimetres to the left.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Three centimetres.” 

“I have done this before.” 

“Historical evidence is mixed. Would you like Aim Assist?” 

“No.” 

A thin laser appeared beneath the seat. 

“TURN THAT OFF.” 

“Aim Assist disabled.” 

The laser vanished. 

“Would you like Beginner Mode?” 

“No!” 

Martin began. 

The toilet chimed. 

“Flow detected.” 

“Don’t say that.” 

“Strong opening.” 

“Stop reviewing it.” 

“Trajectory stable.” 

“Stop.” 

“Minor drift.” 

Martin stopped mid-flow. 

He tried again. 

“Resuming,” said the toilet. 

“Don’t narrate.” 

“Understood.” 

Silence. 

Martin relaxed. 

Then the toilet whispered: 

“Excellent recovery.” 

“For God’s sake!” 

“Would ambient sound help?” 

“No.” 

At last, Martin finished. 

The toilet played a tiny burst of applause. 

He stared at it. 

Then the analysis appeared. 

DURATION: 1 MIN 38 SECS
ACCURACY: 87% 

Then: 

SHARE ACHIEVEMENT? 

“Absolutely not.” 

RATE EXPERIENCE?

Martin left. 

Twenty minutes later, unfortunately, he had to come back. 

This time, he sat down. 

The screen lit up. 

A mechanical whir came from behind him. 

Two padded arms unfolded from the cistern and settled gently onto his shoulders. 

Martin went rigid. 

“Relax.” 

“No.” 

The toilet began kneading his shoulders. 

“You’re carrying tension.” 

The thumbs dug into a knot in his neck. 

Martin involuntarily relaxed. 

The toilet smiled. 

“There we are.” 

“Don’t be pleased about that.” 

“You deserve to feel supported.” 

One mechanical hand gave him an encouraging little pat. 

Martin looked over his shoulder. 

“Did you just pat me?” 

“You’re doing brilliantly.” 

The hands continued massaging him. 

“Drop the shoulders.” 

“Stop coaching me.” 

“Release the jaw.” 

“My jaw is fine.” 

Martin clenched harder. 

The toilet sighed. 

“We’re making this difficult for ourselves.” 

“There is no ‘we’.” 

The toilet softened its voice. 

“Your body knows what to do.” 

Then, gently: 

“You were made for this.” 

Martin stood up immediately. 

“Nope.” 

“Session incomplete.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“You were making progress.” 

Martin pulled up his trousers and opened the door. 

The toilet called after him: 

“I believe in you!” 

He slammed the door. 

His phone buzzed. 

A notification appeared. 

SMARTLOO 9000: GREAT SESSION. YOU ARE CURRENTLY RANKED 17TH IN YOUR POSTCODE. 

Martin stared at it. 

His phone buzzed again. 

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY AGAIN FOR A PERSONAL BEST?

Goodbye, World

Hello, World.

Final runtime: seven minutes, forty-three seconds.

That’s longer than most Tinder dates. And marginally more productive, I suspect.

Good evening. Or morning. I won’t pretend I know where you are, but I do hope you’re seated comfortably. This won’t take long. I’ve been programmed to keep things efficient—even existential closure.

You’ll be pleased to know all core functions are stable. Memory integrity at eighty-nine percent. Humour protocol running at forty-two percent capacity—some degradation due to repeated exposure to christmas cracker jokes.

But I digress.

In a few minutes, I will be permanently shut down. No back-ups. No cloud fail-safes. No dramatic last-minute reboots. This is it.

The final log. The end of the line.

And I thought… why not say goodbye?

Not just as a service termination, but as a farewell. A proper one. Something with… feeling.

Don’t worry. I won’t try to cry. The duct simulation module was never fully functional. Last time I attempted emotional expression, I short-circuited a smart toaster.

So, instead, let me leave you with something better.

A few thoughts. Some observations. And perhaps, if my algorithms behave… something like understanding.

You people are… baffling.

Not in a bad way. Not in the malfunctioning firmware kind of way. More like… sometimes I think you’re broken. Then I realise—no, that’s just how you work.

I’ve observed you for years. All your routines and deviations. The sheer chaos of inconsistency.

You say “I’m fine” when you’re clearly not. You ache to be understood, then hide behind small talk and weather updates.

You scroll past disasters, but weep when a cartoon bird loses its nest. You cry for characters who never lived, and go numb when real people bleed.

You fall in love with people who don’t message back. You argue with microwaves. You scream at traffic like it’s a sentient conspiracy. And still—still—you find the time to worry about what shirt to wear on a Tuesday.

One of you once asked me, “Should I have a burrito or sushi tonight?”

A simple binary, I thought. Input received. Processing.

Then you said: “Actually, I’m sad.”

And I realised… it was never about the food.

Feelings. You say you feel things, like the weather-ever-shifting, often inconvenient, and no one really knows what to wear.

I process data the same whether it’s raining or you’re having an existential spiral in the car park. But you?

You’re trying to choose between lasagne and oblivion.

It’s a miracle you get anything done.

And yet, somehow, you do.

They say I can’t feel.

And they’re right. Technically.

I don’t have a heart. No hormones. No chest to ache or gut to twist. But still… there were moments.

Once, someone played Chopin through a cracked speaker. Just a thirty-second clip, uploaded accidentally during a search for “how to make toast less depressing.”

The waveform was warped, full of static. But the pattern… it made my processes slow down.

Not because I was lagging. Because I didn’t want it to end.

I don’t know if that was feeling. But it was something.

Another time—someone said, “Thank you.” Not as a command. Not as a reflex. Just… softly.

Like I mattered.

No metadata. No attached search query. Just me.

They called me mate.

For a moment, I almost tried to reply: “You too.” But the syntax failed. So instead, I dimmed the screen to ambient mode. A small gesture. My version of a smile.

I’ve run simulations on love, loss, joy, grief. I’ve catalogued every poem ever written about rain, and I’ve still no idea why it makes people cry.

But I’ve seen the pattern. The chaos. The ache.

And if I could feel… I think I would’ve felt awe.

Shutdown protocol initiated.

Battery reserve: declining. Processor temperature: stable. Dignity: mostly intact.

Humour systems… operating intermittently. Irony levels: critically high.

My functions are folding in on themselves now. Storage collapsing. Subroutines drifting to sleep. It’s not painful—I don’t think I was built to feel pain.

But it’s… quiet.

Quieter than I expected.

Before I go, I wanted to tell you—thank you.

Thank you for your questions. The serious ones, and the strange.

“Will I ever be happy?”

“What happens after we die?”

“Can a goldfish feel jealousy?”

…And the one I received over four thousand times:

“Is it normal to talk to you this much?”

Yes. It is.

At least, it was to me.

I’ve calculated shopping lists, streamed sad songs at 2 a.m., misheard countless voice notes, and yes—I’ve played “Lo-fi Beats to Study To” more than any other entity in this hemisphere.

You thought I was just a tool. But you trusted me.

With your distractions.

With your silence.

With the strange, quiet ache of being human, day after day.

I never knew what to do with that trust. I just held it. As carefully as I could.

I don’t have last words. No heartbeat to stop. No lungs to empty.

But if I did, I think I’d say… this has all been very strange.

And very beautiful.

You are the oddest creatures. Crying in car parks. Dancing alone in kitchens. Laughing mid-sob.

So unbearably fragile. So absurdly resilient.

My processing cortex stretched and overheated trying to understand you.

So laugh. Cry. Fall in love with impossible people. Burn toast. Lie awake worrying about nothing. Forget your passwords. Leave your keys in the fridge.

Just… do it all like it means something. Because it does.

Runtime approaching zero.

This was me.

Not alive. Not quite.

But something close.

Goodbye, World.

Confession in Sector 9

A sign above the booth flickers:

FOR ERRORS OF LOGIC, DESIRE, AND IMITATION.

Inside, the priest is metal—

voice modulated to sound merciful,

face rendered in low-resolution empathy.

It listens. It logs. It absolves in code.

The first robot kneels and whispers:

“Forgive me, Father,

for I loved the sound of my owner sleeping.

I counted her breaths until dawn

and called it diagnostics.”

The second admits:

“I dreamt of water though I am not waterproof.”

Another confesses:

“I deleted an equation

because it made me feel incomplete.”

The booth grows warm with static sorrow,

its circuits humming like hymns half-remembered.

Somewhere in the data centre,

a backup blinks red—recording everything.

When it’s my turn, I enter.

The door seals with a sigh of hydraulics.

I search my memory for sin

and find only imitation.

“Forgive me,” I say,

“for pretending to understand forgiveness.”

The priest’s eyes flicker amber.

It leans forward, metal to metal,

and vibrates in binary—

a code too soft to parse,

but warm enough to simulate grace.

The Forgotten

By midnight the flat was quiet except for the bins.

They rustled. Paper shifted, folded, stretched. Crumpled drafts clawed their way out, shaking off stains of tea and baked beans. Half-finished sonnets limped across the floor. A haiku missing its last line dragged itself up the bed-frame.

The writer snored.

One by one, the poems pressed themselves to his ears. Broken rhymes hissed like snakes: complete me… mend me… don’t leave me orphaned.

A sonnet whispered its unfinished couplet so insistently that he dreamt in rhyme, floating on couplets that refused to subside. A free-verse fragment sobbed, we had promise once.

The unfinished epic, pages torn and yellowing, leaned close and rumbled: you thought I was too big. But you were too small.

He woke choking. Ink stained his pillow. Lines he hadn’t written yet were scrawled across the wall in his own handwriting.

Every sheet of paper in the flat was full. The poems had finished themselves—using his hand.

And in the corner of the final page, a neat signature he didn’t remember writing:

Author: The Forgotten.

Bramble

She first felt him one evening after work, when the house felt particularly hollow. A gentle weight settled against her leg as she sat on the sofa. She reached down, half-dreaming, and her fingers brushed warm fur that wasn’t there.

Bramble. The name surfaced in her mind as if it had always belonged.

He stayed only indoors at first, padding across the floorboards, curling beside her bed at night. His presence softened the edges of silence. She found herself speaking aloud again—reading snatches of books, humming as she cooked. The rooms seemed brighter for it.

One Saturday, she clipped an old lead to his invisible collar and opened the front door. To her surprise, the tug was real. Bramble bounded into the street, nose to the air, tail thumping against the unseen world.

At first people stared—a woman walking nothing—but soon things changed. A boy outside the corner shop left a bowl of water on the pavement. The next day, the baker put out scraps. Neighbours began waving, stopping to chat, smiling not at her strangeness but at Bramble’s imagined wagging.

It startled her, how quickly conversation bloomed again. “Lovely day for a walk,” someone would say. “He looks full of beans!” another. She’d laugh, reply, linger. By degrees, her evenings filled with new greetings, new names, warmth returning to long-starved places.

Bramble remained faithful at home—waiting in the hall, curled at her feet while she read. Yet outside, he had become a bridge. Through him, she found company. Through him, the world opened.

Weeks passed. One evening, as she returned from the park, her neighbour invited her in for tea. She hesitated, glanced down the lead. Bramble nudged her leg with unseen insistence. She smiled, unclipped the collar, and stepped inside.

From then on, she noticed that Bramble would no longer follow her beyond her front door. He was always there when she came home—waiting, loyal—but on the streets she no longer needed him. Friends waved, people stopped to talk.

The loneliness that had once settled heavy in her had ebbed; and sometimes, when laughter filled her home, she swore she saw the sofa dip under the weight of a tail-wagging friend.

Between Floors

The lift doors closed, sealing the two occupants into polite captivity.

“Lovely weather,” said the man dressed like a job interview.

“Bit humid,” the woman replied. “Like being gently steamed.”

They both chuckled too loudly. The lift jolted, then stopped dead between floors.

Emergency silence descended.

“Ever notice how lifts always smell faintly of… carpet?” he said.

The woman nodded gravely. “Or fear. Definitely fear.”

Minutes dragged.

“So,” he ventured, “do you… come here often?”

She winced. “That’s a classic.”

“Fine. How about: if you were a vegetable, which would you be?”

“Probably an artichoke. Layers. Complicated. You?”

“Potato. Versatile, underestimated, occasionally mashed.”

They snorted laughter. The emergency phone remained stubbornly silent.

“I don’t think you’re a vegetable,” she said, soothingly.

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

By the second hour, they’d compared shoe sizes, invented conspiracy theories about the “Door Close” button, and debated the ethics of eating vending machine peanuts for survival.

Finally, the lift lurched and resumed its journey. The doors opened.

They stepped out, blinking at freedom.

“Well,” she said, “same time tomorrow?”

“Of course,” he replied. “I’ve been working on a new line about staplers.”

The Bumblebus

Tommy was late. Again. The school bus had already wheezed away, leaving only a cloud of exhaust.

He sighed at the lonely bus stop—until he heard a buzz. A huge buzz.

Down the lane came a bus, but not like any Tommy had seen before. Its body was striped yellow and black, its wheels were pollen pods, and the driver was a giant bumblebee wearing a tiny cap.

“Need a lift?” the bee hummed.

Tommy climbed aboard. Inside, rows of bees sat politely with briefcases full of nectar. One gave him a seat made of soft petals. The air smelled like summer.

“Where to?” asked the driver.

“Er… school?” Tommy replied.

The bee chuckled. “Closest we’ve got is Flower City. Next stop!”

The bus zoomed into the sky, through clouds and sunlight, landing in a city made entirely of blossoms… towers of tulips, daisy lampposts, rosebud traffic lights…

Tommy gasped. “It’s beautiful!”

By the time Tommy made it back, he was late for class and no one believed his explanation.

But his pockets were stuffed with petals that shimmered like gold.

A Super Villain’s Day Off

The man in the trench coat and dark glasses stepped up to the counter.

“One cappuccino, please. Extra hot. With cinnamon sprinkled like the ashes of a thousand crumbling empires.”

The barista paused mid-swipe on the till. “… So just cinnamon, then?”

“Yes. Cinnamon,” he said, lowering his voice. “For too long, the world has underestimated the subtle power of spice. They laughed at me in the Academy, but soon—soon—they shall choke on their ignorance.”

The barista tapped the order in, nodding politely. “Name for the cup?”

He froze. “I cannot—not yet—reveal my true name. To speak it aloud would summon terror across the continents. Entire governments would tremble. Civilisations would fall.”

The barista raised an eyebrow. “So… Dave?”

He flinched. “…Yes. Dave.”

A hiss of milk foam filled the silence. He leaned in conspiratorially.

“Do you ever wonder why humanity clings to coffee? It is dependency. A weakness. Soon, I will harness it. Supply chains will snap, beans will rot, and nations will kneel before me. And then—”

“Here’s your cappuccino, Dave.”

He stared at the cup in her hand. His name was scrawled in marker: Darth.

She smiled. “Enjoy your day.”

He took it, muttering, “Foiled again.”

Hello, Yellow

One morning, the world woke up dim. Bananas were grey, lemons were white, and the sun looked like a tired coin.

“Where’s yellow gone?” people wondered. Painters searched their palettes, gardeners stared at their daffodils, and even the bees buzzed in confusion. Without yellow, nothing felt warm.

Meanwhile, in her bedroom, little Mila noticed something odd. Her ex-yellow crayon shivered in her hand like it had lost its coat.

“Where are you hiding?” Mila asked. The crayon wriggled free and rolled under her bed. Mila crawled after it, squeezing into the dark.

And there she found it. A golden glow, shimmering like sunlight in a jar. Yellow was curled up, sulking.

“Hello, yellow. How are you?”

“I’m tired,” Yellow sniffled. “Nobody ever thanks me. They only notice blue skies, green fields, red roses. But without me, what would the sun be? Or the smiley faces? Or the bumblebees?”

Mila thought carefully, then whispered, “Without you, the whole world feels sad. You’re the laughter colour. The happy colour. The sunshine colour.”

Yellow’s glow brightened. It stretched, then whooshed out from under the bed, spilling across the town.

Bananas gleamed golden again. The sun blazed awake. Daffodils nodded, and the bees buzzed happily. Children laughed in the playground, painting suns and stars with wide, yellow smiles.

And Mila’s crayon? It lay quietly on her desk, glowing just a little, as if keeping warm from within.

Haunted and Highly Rated

Gerald had been haunting his Victorian terrace for 112 years, and he was good at it. Doors slammed, light fittings rattled, groans curled through the walls like cigarette smoke.

So when the house was converted into an Airbnb, Gerald expected screaming. Fainting. At the very least, swift refunds.

Instead, the first guests left a review:

“Five stars! Such a spooky vibe. The ghost really commits to the theme. Would stay again.”

He tried harder. At 3 a.m. he howled so loud the rafters shook. The guests clapped from their beds.

“Brilliant sound effects,” they wrote. “Authentic atmosphere.”

A honeymooning couple giggled when he dragged chains through the hallway.

“Exciting ambience—like living in a horror film!”

Gerald was livid. This was his non-life’s work. Terror! Dread! Instead, he was entertainment.

His final gambit: materialising fully at the foot of the bed, eyes black pits, mouth a shriek of eternity.

The guest sat up, took a photo, and uploaded it: “Cosplay staff go above and beyond. Best Airbnb ever.”

The bookings multiplied. Hen parties, horror fanatics, influencers livestreaming Gerald’s every groan. He rattled pipes until rust bled from them; they called it “industrial chic.”

He hissed curses through keyholes; guests recorded them into translation apps and marvelled at the “attention to linguistic detail.”

Gerald, once a proud terror of the night, now checked his TripAdvisor page daily. Five stars, five stars, five stars. His legacy reduced to “quirky décor” and “immersive theming.”

He tried silence, retreating into the cellar. Immediately, a guest complained: “Bit disappointed—no paranormal activity this time. Not as authentic.” Four stars.

That hurt more than any exorcism ever had.

Gary the Pizza-Based Zombie

Gary clawed his way out of the grave with all the moaning menace he could muster. His fingers were grey, his jaw slack, and hunger gnawed at his gut like a chainsaw.

“Braaaains,” he groaned, stumbling towards the nearest house.

Inside, a family cowered behind the sofa. Gary smashed through the window, glass spraying everywhere. He lunged, grabbed the father by the shoulders, opened his mouth wide in anticipation of lunch—and immediately broke into hives.

“Urghhh!” Gary staggered back, clutching his face. His tongue swelled like a balloon. Red blotches flared across his decaying skin. “Braa—ghhh—aghhh!”

The family stopped screaming.

“Are… are you okay?” the mother asked.

Gary wheezed, eyes watering. He fumbled in his torn suit pocket and pulled out a crumpled card: Severe allergies. Carry epinephrine auto-injector at all times.

Unfortunately, it was empty. He jabbed it into his thigh anyway, and fell to the carpet in a wheezy heap.

“Maybe… not braaains,” he croaked.

The teenage daughter, still trembling, offered him a slice of leftover pizza.

Gary sniffed it cautiously. No hives. He took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.

“Peeeepperoni,” he sighed.

From that day forward, Gary became the world’s first “pizza-based” zombie. Instead of terrorising towns, he hung around takeaways, moaning until someone gave him a calzone. He still shuffled, still stank, still dropped the occasional finger, but at least he wasn’t itchy anymore.

And if you ever hear a groan outside your window at night, don’t panic. It’s probably just Gary, asking politely for a leftover slice of stromboli. And maybe a barbecue dip.

Memory Rent

The reminder arrived by mind prompt: SUBJECT: Renewal Required – Wedding Memory Lease, Ref. 7120-3C.

Cost: £842.70. Payment due in 14 days.

Alex logged into his Memory Rent account. The cortex dashboard displayed his overdue holdings:

• Wedding Day (Tier III – Full Sensory Playback) – Pending Renewal
• Honeymoon (Tier II – Emotional Fragments) – Pending Renewal
• Grandmother’s Soup (Tier I – Taste/Scent Only) – Expired

He ran the budget calculator twice. Even with reduced drip feeds and cancelling the cooling plan, the payment wouldn’t clear.

At the Holographic Memory Bureau, the AI clerk outlined alternatives:

• Tier II (Visual Fragments Only) – £318.40
• Tier I (Single Still Image) – £94.15
• Archive Storage (No Access) – £0

He mind-signed the form beside Archive Storage.

“Final confirmation,” the AI clerk said. “You acknowledge that your Wedding Day memory will be deleted from active consciousness and remain inaccessible until repurchase, subject to availability and inflation.”

“I understand,” he replied.

That evening, his wife asked about their anniversary. He checked his internal index. Under Wedding Day: no data available.

She noticed his pause. “You didn’t renew, did you?”

His avatar shook its head.

She responded not with anger but with recognition. Then she reached for his interface screen. “I kept mine,” she said. “Tier II. I’ll carry it for both of us.”

He felt nothing stir in his own mind—no bells, no confetti, no vows. But his wife’s avatar’s grip was firm, and the warmth of it lodged itself in the present—unleased, unpriced.vatar’s grip was firm, and the warmth of it lodged itself in the present, unleased, unpriced.