Life by the Numbers
A one-sentence story
As we sat across the table at Jean Moulin's on our first date, I revealed my fitness tracker watch to Jewel, explaining how it calculates calories, wakes me at the ideal salubrious morning minute, monitors my stress so I know when to play meditation music, informs me about scary movie scenes that would precipitate raging nightmares by observing my respiration, thus giving me the option to avert my eyes, advises me to raise or lower the air conditioning by tracking my skin temperature, prods me to jog faster based on my blood oxygen level and heart rate, tells me whether I require a vacation by checking my electrodermal status, and forecasts the best moment for orgasmic release, but when I described how my watch assesses its data with algorithmic intuition to advise me about whether the woman I’m with is the woman I should be with, she looked at her watch, its digits aglow, grimaced, and left the restaurant.
It’s fun to compress a character’s entire life into a single, breathless sentence. I wonder if our own lives could be told in one sentence.
If you enjoyed this story, I think you’ll also like my one-sentence story, The Uber Eats Delivery Driver.
What a clever way to tell a story, Bill! It did leave me gasping for breath! I must admit, I'd pobably walk out on a guy like that, too! It makes a subtle point though. We are all becoming far too automated. Carry on like this and we will evolve into human/AI hybrids!
I must have bought the wrong brand.