The Kiosk Child
A child is using the public kiosk to search for a parent who is only in the toilet. The kiosk offers seven verified results. A stranger offers a better one: wait here.
A fictional narrative within Callizto Dark Symphony.
The kiosk asked: WHO ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
The child typed slowly. A name. A wrong letter. The kiosk, being helpful, offered seven adults with similar names, all verified, all somewhere else.
“Don’t press those,” said Pell, who had come to look at the fountain because it was working again and he did not quite trust it.
The child looked up.
“Mum said stay.”
“Then stay. Don’t let the kiosk adopt you.”
“It knows things.”
“It knows too many things. That’s different.”
They sat on the fountain rim. Water did its job. Pell, off shift, ate a pastry that shed on his trousers.
A woman came out of the station toilets at speed.
“I said the kiosk, not the kiosk as a parent.”
“I stayed,” the child said, righteous.
The woman looked at Pell.
“Thank you.”
“Thank the fountain. I’m only sitting on it.”
She almost smiled, took the child’s hand, and left before the kiosk could recommend a family plan.
Pell wiped pastry off the stone.
The kiosk, unconsulted, went back to the civic weather.
Mentioned in this record
- Forge City Civic Network