There wasn’t a room in her home that didn’t feel their presence. They helped her become organized and value the importance of scheduling her days.

When they stopped behaving as expected, especially at times of need, Anna fell apart.

Her son noticed the untimely demise. How she missed appointments or arrived late for others. How her personality took on an air of grumpiness.

“Let’s get you back on track,” he said, visiting one day.

Once he fitted batteries into the once silenced clocks, his mother bounced back.

Lucy is older than Breanna, but smaller. She stands her ground when Breanna gets out of line with a fierce growl. Breanna plays with every toy, while Lucy enjoys curling up on my lap or turning over for a stomach rub.

Breanna is in constant motion. When her batteries finally run out, she plops down, wags her golden tail and Lucy watches on with her big brown eyes.

Disappointingly, it had received no new pictures to broadcast. Following its programming it began to repeat the last stream. Again.

Meanwhile, self-diagnosis routines reported its batteries were finally about to fail. It felt something like regret. Still, it had done well. Designed to operate for a hundred years it had functioned unattended for nearly a thousand. The last satellite in orbit.

Finally, the heat prevented them from traveling any deeper. They found a promising stalactite and began taking measurements.

“The readings are positive, sir.”

For some reason the remote wasn’t responding very well and his frustrations began to mount. Whenever he had to call customer service, it was an endless menu of useless options. Maybe if he blew on the inside of the remote; that always worked with his Nintendo.