NUMB

Giulia Martinelli

A story about robots and grief.

Giulia is a full-time artist, animation director, and designer from Italy and is now based in Zurich. After her graduation, she hopped around Europe for a bit, before settling down in Switzerland. She juggles client commissions with personal projects and is currently developing her new film about grief.

http://giuliamartinelli.com

Book Cover: Generated by deepai.org

"Numb" is a story about grief and about the numbness that comes from this traumatic experience.

One of the common symptoms of grieving is numbness, both physical and emotional. It is a natural response of our bodies, trying to protect us from a shock, flushing our organism with chemicals. This state can last for days or months after experiencing a death of a loved one.

In my experience, and also researching the topic some years later, I discovered that it is a very common response: some people literally do not feel anything for some time, as if they are emotionally paralyzed.

Grief can make you feel like a robot, unable to understand emotions, and unable to empathize with the people around you.

This is the story of a journey to re-discover emotions, from the eyes of a robot who experienced grief.
Fun fact: “Ava” means life in Hebrew.

Ava was the latest model of a personal assistant robot.

She was a sleek, silver robot with glowing green eyes and a highly advanced artificial intelligence. She was created to serve her assigned human, her Master, and help them with their daily tasks and provide companionship.

It was a bright new day, and Ava was confused. She was unable to start the day as usual, and she was unable to find her Master, because the apartment was filled with stranger humans, running up and down with concerned faces, or running eyes.

She approached the woman that was usually coming to visit the Master for tea on Wednesdays.

It was not Wednesday. She was not looking good, leaning on a door, her hands covering her face.

"Pardon me, Madame,- Ava said - I know I would usually be the one assisting and offering information, but would you be so kind to let me know what is going on? And why are your eyes moist?"

The lady briefly looked at her with absent eyes, then looked away with a wince of silent pain.

"I apologize, I did not intend to upset you, I am on a quest to understand the situation..." but the lady moved away to hug someone as Ava was saying this.
A silent chaotic movement of humans was happening in the room, they all looked calmly concerned, and upset. Most of them were wearing black clothes. Ava was observing and trying her best to gather as much information as possible.

Her assigned human, her Master, passed away.
That is what she finally heard and processed, as more and more humans were appearing in the apartment.

Ava was standing next to the wall and was analyzing this new information as some humans were signing papers and talking in a very low tone.
It seemed like death was causing a peculiar reaction in humans, Ava observed: they looked upset, they went quiet, almost scared, they wanted to hug a lot, they got red and sometimes moist eyes, and they liked to whisper.

"Aren't you sad, Ava?" Asked candidly the young nephew of the Master, interrupting her thoughts.

"I am sorry, I am unable to answer the question. Please provide me with more information or a different set of instructions." Ava replied. The boy looked confused, just moments before his mother pulled him away in her black coat.

"I am equipped with advanced sensors and artificial intelligence, allowing me to understand and respond to a variety of commands and requests, but I don't find anything regarding death, apart from some medical, logistic, and bureaucratic information.

What about all those concerned humans and their emotions? What are those? Why do I not feel any? Am I a bad personal assistant of the Master if my eyes are not watery?”
Ava kept asking herself.

Unable to be useful to anyone, or to properly answer questions, Ava left the room and went to a quiet place to think.

Why cannot she have the same reaction as everyone else around? Her system has been in that chaotic confused state since this happened and that is it.

Everybody feels, she does not.

Also, no one really cared about her, she was almost invisible.

That evening, before switching off for the night, Ava decided to dedicate her future efforts to discover those so-called emotions.

The following days were busy as well. People coming and going, probably fewer concerned faces, but surely more chaos. Papers, and documents, humans feverishly moving, the doorbell constantly ringing, and still no sight of the Master.
Ava finally found people to talk to. Some close friends of the Master organized a meeting in the living room, talking, going through some of the Master’s belonging, sipping tea, and sobbing a little.
Ava was allowed and invited to join, and she thought this could have been the perfect occasion to finally understand this chaotic bundle of things called emotions, and maybe she would have also finally felt one!

Merlyn, probably the closest partner of the Master, was sitting on an armchair holding a picture, in which the Master was posing with a smile, mountains in the background. Merlyn was sighing a lot and his face looked extremely serious and vulnerable. He said things like “He was a good man”, or “We will never forget him”, which all sounded like good and positive and true statements! Ava did not understand the bleak mood.

Anna, the sister of the Master, was there as well, looking miserable. She was surrounded by used tissue and could not stop her eyes and nose from leaking. She was going through memories, and sometimes her voice was broken and she could not go on, so everyone was left in suspense until she could carry on and finish the sentence.

From what she could gather, Ava understood that those persons were repeating over and over statements about the Master not being there anymore. And this objective fact of reality was making them incredibly upset. Ava kept feeling nothing at all, even after being exposed to such evidence of extreme emotions.

Ava left the room. She did not discover anything. How annoying!
What a wasted day.

That night she went to bed with a lot of questions. Even more questions than when she started her quest. This was very confusing and frustrating for her system, which was running in a cycle without finding a solution.

It was a tormented night.

She woke up in the morning like as if she had a horrible nightmare. She never had a nightmare before!

There was a rhythmic sound in the back of her head, and an unsettling sense of “something is not okay”. It was her heartbeat! Her heart was pounding fast, and she was sweating. Shortly after, her vision got blurred and she could not see very well the room around her.
Those were tears, she was crying!
It took her a while to understand what was going on.

She was turning into a human.