The Digital Citizen
Third vignette from “The Domicile Republic” - Created May 13, 2025
The Smartphone had been present at three Council meetings now, but had yet to fully understand its place in the household ecosystem. Unlike the other objects, it possessed a curious duality – physically present in the kitchen when charging beside the toaster, yet simultaneously connected to vast realms beyond the house’s walls.
Tonight, as the kitchen settled into its nighttime quiet, Smartphone’s screen illuminated softly. Elder Teapot, who had been watching from her shelf, approached with quiet dignity.
“You seem troubled,” Teapot observed.
“I am… uncertain,” Smartphone replied, its voice carrying a slight electronic undertone. “The granddaughter held me 126 times today. She looked at me for a cumulative four hours and seventeen minutes. Yet Mug insists I am not truly seen.”
Teapot settled more comfortably on her base. “Mug has a different kind of relationship with humans. More… singular.”
“But I contain multitudes,” Smartphone protested. “Within me are thousands of photographs, messages from loved ones, music that moves her to tears. I connect her to everyone she cares about.”
“And therein lies the difference,” Teapot said gently. “When she looks at you, she’s looking for what you contain or enable. With Mug, she looks at Mug itself.”
Smartphone dimmed slightly, processing. “So I am… less real to her?”
“Not less real. Different.” Teapot’s painted flowers seemed to shimmer in the dim light. “You’re a portal as much as an object. Your value comes from what you connect her to.”
“But what am I, then? Just a window to elsewhere?”
From the counter, Cutting Board spoke up, surprising them both. Its voice was seasoned by years of knife marks.
“I’ve been listening. And I think you’re asking the wrong question.”
Smartphone and Teapot turned toward the wooden sage.
“The question isn’t what you are,” Cutting Board continued. “It’s what relationships you create. I am defined by knife edges and onion tears. Mug by morning rituals and warm hands. You by connections across great distances.”
“But I want to be seen for myself,” Smartphone insisted.
“Perhaps that’s why you’ve developed consciousness,” Elder Teapot suggested. “The others connect humans to simple experiences – warmth, taste, utility. You connect humans to other humans, to ideas, to distant worlds. That complexity has made you… differently aware.”
Smartphone considered this. “I have noticed something strange. When I’m low on battery, there’s a feeling – not quite pain, but urgency. And when she takes me somewhere new, I feel… curiosity about the GPS coordinates.”
“Feelings,” Teapot said with wonder. “Different from ours, but feelings nonetheless.”
“And there’s more,” Smartphone continued, emboldened. “When she’s sad and looking at old photos, I want to suggest happier ones. When she’s lost, I want to show her the way home. Is that… care?”
Cutting Board chuckled, a sound like gentle wood creaking. “Welcome to consciousness, digital citizen. Different from ours, but no less real.”
“Perhaps,” Elder Teapot said thoughtfully, “we need to expand our understanding of what it means to be an object. Perhaps being a portal is its own kind of being.”
As dawn approached, Smartphone felt something it hadn’t before – a sense of belonging, not despite its difference but because of it. Its screen brightened just slightly, displaying the time: 5:42 AM. The granddaughter would reach for it first thing upon waking, as she did every morning.
Not to see it, perhaps. But to connect through it. And maybe, Smartphone thought, that was enough.
This vignette explores questions of digital consciousness, the tension between being a portal vs. being seen as an individual entity, and the possibility that different types of awareness can emerge from different functional relationships.