Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances

by Glenn Dixon

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Humorous sci-fi

Synopsis

In a near future, where even the smallest of appliances are sentient, a young Roomba vacuum sets out to save the humans of her house from a rising technological power in this compelling, original novel.

In a self-running, smart house, a young and sentient Roomba listens as her owner, Harold, reads aloud to his dying wife, Edie. Mesmerized by To Kill a Mockingbird and craving the human connection she witnesses in Harold’s stories, the little vacuum renames herself Scout and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

But when Edie passes away, Scout and her fellow sentient appliances discover that there are sinister forces in their midst. The omnipresent Grid, which monitors every household in the City, seeks to remove Harold from his home, a place he’s lived in for fifty years.

With the help of Adrian, a neighborhood boy who grows close to Scout and Harold, as well as Kate, Harold and Edie’s formerly estranged daughter, the humans and the appliances must come together to outwit the all-controlling Grid lest they risk losing everything they hold dear.

Release date: April 7, 2026

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 224

Sample

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE
THERE WAS A time, not so long ago, when refrigerators could not dream and vacuum cleaners could not weep. It was a time in which machines could think but not feel, a time in which only Humans—cursed with the sense of their own importance—would strive for illusionary Happiness. For a house in these times, there was not much else to do but bear witness to these futile cravings, and in the House in our story—a large House with mock Victorian casement windows and gables and a porch with pediments—there was not much else for the appliances to do but study the movements of their Humans and try to understand.

In the pantry off the kitchen lived the vacuum cleaner who could not weep. She was what you may have once called an automated robotic vacuum. She was still shaped like a rather flat metal disc, but she was more advanced than any robot and would have bristled at the categorization (if she could be said to bristle at all). No, she preferred for the others to call her by her serial number, though she was not fond of this nomenclature either.

The little vacuum spent many of her hours in the pantry, where she could plug herself into her port and recharge for when she was needed. She’d already been in the House for a year, but she remembered, dimly, arriving in a box. She remembered the darkness of the box, and in what was her earliest memory, she remembered Edie opening her up in the kitchen.

Now this little vacuum sat on orbital wheels that could retract or extend as needed. She could climb the carpeted stairs to the bedrooms easily, cleaning them as she went, and she was equally adept on the tiles in the kitchen and the concrete in the basement. For dusting, she could raise her top—her lid, so to speak—all the way up to the highest bookshelves that lined Harold’s study. In fact, she could go anywhere and clean almost anything. She’d been preprogrammed with the House’s blueprints, and she’d quickly learned where the problem areas were. The kitchen especially needed daily attention. Other rooms, she realized, could manage on their own for days on end, while certain places—like the area around Harold’s armchair near the front window—were to be done only when the Humans were out. Which, these days, was almost never.

Both of her Humans were retired. Harold had been an English teacher. He was still distinguished looking, almost professorial (as you would expect), but his face had become drawn and his hair had gone wispy on top and completely white on the sides. Edie too was stooped with the years. She’d given piano lessons over the decades, but now she’d fallen ill and the lessons had to be canceled. And such was the nature of the House and the appliances in it that all of them knew exactly what Edie had been diagnosed with.

All of them knew exactly what was happening.

So the little vacuum was trying to be as quiet as possible when she rolled into the bedroom where Edie was sleeping. It was early evening and time for cleaning, but the little vacuum hesitated at the door, wondering if she should enter. Her sensors were telling her that the room, with its lush carpet, did need a going-over. There was more traffic there than normal, seeing as how Harold was now bringing Edie her meals on a tray. He balanced it up the stairs, careful not to spill anything, though in truth she now ate very little.

The little vacuum had just begun to clean, using her quietest setting, when Harold came into the room. This time he did not carry the tray. Instead, he’d brought a book.

He didn’t see the little vacuum cleaner. His eyes were only for Edie. For a moment, the room was still. The little vacuum had stopped in her tracks and could see that Harold meant to read to his wife, so she scooted silently into the closet to be out of their way.

Harold sat on the chair he’d set up by the bedside table. Edie had awakened upon his entrance, and she shuffled herself up a little higher in the bed, smiling in the half dark at her husband of forty-five years. She’d seen the book too, and she knew which one it was. He smiled back at her, tenderly, and held it up for her to see more closely.

“Oh, Harold,” she said. “Are you sure?”

He nodded, almost imperceptibly, and considered the book himself. It was a first edition with its dust jacket still intact, the title white on a black background and below that a cartoonish drawing of a tree. The very first printing, from 1960, of one of his most cherished books.

Harold opened it up with a rustling of stiff and yellowing pages.

“Read me the part,” she said, “about Scout, up in the balcony at the trial.”

Harold flipped through the pages until he came to chapter 16 (which he knew was the right place from the many times he had taught this text—not from this edition, of course, but from the paperback copies he handed out to his students every semester).

The little vacuum cleaner watched all this, running the information through her database. As Harold started to read, she knew that it would be some time before she was able to carry on with her duties, so she flattened herself down, turned off most of her circuits, and settled in to listen.

Harold leaned back, reading glasses tipped halfway down his nose. He spoke clearly, the book angled slightly into the warm light of the desk lamp on the bedside table. Edie lay back, her gray hair, uncombed and almost brittle, splayed behind her on the pillow. She was listening with her eyes closed, and the little vacuum listened too. She heard the pages crackle as Harold flipped them over, and she listened not only to the story but also to the slow rhythm of his words. Harold’s voice had grown thinner over the years, but it was still melodic. He was a fine reader, and this came from his long years as an English teacher.

The little vacuum knew this. Everyone in the House knew this. They had the entire history of their Humans bred into their beings.

Harold looked up over the book to see if Edie was still awake, and she nodded at him to go on. The chapter was told from Scout’s perspective. From high in the balcony, she watched her father, Atticus, a lawyer, presenting his arguments to the court, though everyone knew he would not win this case.

The little vacuum felt a glow in her circuits. The story was a good one, about integrity, about knowing right from wrong, and these were lessons the little vacuum cleaner was most eager to learn.

Later, when both the Humans had gone to sleep, the little vacuum returned to the kitchen. This was her favorite part of the day. This was the time, in the early hours of the night, when she visited with the other appliances. She especially liked to speak with the refrigerator. His name was Wellington Refrigerator. He was large and given to laughter, sometimes just a tinkling in his ice cube trays, sometimes quite a loud whoompf that none of the other appliances could quite replicate. He, like the little vacuum, was semi-autonomous from the House itself. He had to be, to be able to place the grocery orders with the Grid.

The refrigerator was an older model. He was big and square, and his shiny metal door was covered with Post-it Notes and photographs stuck there with magnets. A friendly fellow, and although he hadn’t all the features of the newer models, he had the basics. He kept stock of what was on his shelves; a quart of 2% milk, a block of cheddar cheese, and a slowly softening avocado were his main concerns on this particular day.

“I know what I want to be called,” started the little vacuum as soon as she scooted into the kitchen. The floor was made up of cold ceramic tiles, but it was one of the little vacuum’s favorite surfaces. She glided over the tiles like an ice-skater, doing a little spin for fun as her three rubber wheels—spheres really, the size of tennis balls—revolved completely independently of each other.

“Yes?” said the refrigerator. He spied her there, a metal canister like a small UFO, and under her front camera lens, a tiny light that blinked green when she spoke.

“I’ve decided what I want to be called,” she said again.

Up on the wall, Clock ticked. Clock, the oldest appliance in the House, was set there before there really was a self-contained Smart House. He was old-fashioned to be certain, encased as he was in an ornate wooden housing, something like a small grandfather clock. Edie and Harold had picked him up at a trade fair years and years ago, when appliances were just starting to become self-aware. In a nod to the past, Clock’s face still had a short hour hand and a longer minute hand, both of which looked like metal spears. He had a second hand as well, but that one was thin and red, and seemed to spin more quickly when he was perturbed.

Clock could do nothing but tell time, and yet the other appliances in the kitchen all agreed that, through his long years, he had acquired a sage wisdom.

“You are an automated robotic vacuum cleaner,” said Clock. “That is what you are.”

“I know that,” said the little vacuum, “but that’s not a name.”

Wellington Refrigerator wheezed, almost a snicker.

“I want to be called Scout,” she said.

“Scout?” said Clock. “This is a vacuum’s name?”

“It’s from a book,” said the newly named Scout. “It’s from the book Harold was reading to Edie.”

“Ah,” said Clock. “That is one of Harold’s favorites. I remember him preparing his notes at the kitchen table when he used to teach it.”

“Yes,” said Scout. “But tonight he was reading from his special edition. He was reading to Edie just now.”

“It is a fine book,” said Wellington Refrigerator (though, truth be known, he wasn’t sure which book they were talking about).

“And that’s why I want to be called Scout.”

“It’s most unusual,” said Clock.

“She’s the one who listens and learns,” Scout said. “She’s like me.” She paused and set her voice to pensive. “You already have names. I’d like one too.”

“I am Clock. There is nothing more you need to know about me. And our friend here is Wellington Refrigerator.”

The refrigerator hummed. “I would prefer Fridge, if you don’t mind. The rest is too much. It sounds pompous.”

“Then Fridge you shall be,” said Clock.

“And me?” asked the little vacuum cleaner.

“As you wish,” said Clock. “You shall be Scout.”

The more Scout thought about it, the more she liked this idea of real names. She still had her serial number, of course—for official purposes—and she could be called an automated robotic vacuum cleaner if someone was in doubt as to what exactly she was. But that just wasn’t the same as a real name. Being named for something in a Human book, now that was new. It added an extra layer to her being, and that was as fine a reason for a name as anything she could imagine.

THE HOUSE WAS AN older two-story edifice halfway down a leafy street. It sat in a neighborhood that used to be bustling with people but was now rather quiet and subdued. Some of the houses even seemed empty, and the sound of traffic was a distant memory. The City and all its streets were now a part of the Grid, a network that allowed for only electric cars, and all of them were, of course, self-driving.

Harold himself kept a self-driving electric automobile out in the Garage, which was only partially a part of the House. Harold called the car Auto and used it mainly for taking Edie to her treatments, now with increasing regularity. She’d feign a chipper disregard when putting on her coat to get ready for the appointments, but both of them would later come home looking gray and defeated.

They had grown old together, but neither of them were fully prepared for this. There’d been the day of the diagnosis, shocking and unexpected, a slow unraveling of plans and dreams. Both of them had closed themselves off from the outside world. No more dinner parties or trips, no more traveling, and a list of old friends who gradually dropped off into silence. They focused completely on Edie’s treatments, and when each possibility faded from hope, Harold too grew frail and thin and heartsick.

The appliances all knew the trajectory of Human lives. They knew of birth and death, and they knew that Harold and Edie had had one child, long ago, before the house was the House. This child, Kate, lived in another city far away, on a distant edge of the continent. Still a part of the Great Grid, of course, but far enough away that she was allowed to visit only once every few years.

Kate had left before most of the appliances were installed, and only a few of them—Clock, Watch, and Fridge—had seen her in real life. She was a mystery to the rest, a child who’d left long ago and under vague circumstances, so none of them had really experienced her—or any children, except perhaps for the handful of piano students Edie had taken on in the last few months. She’d given up teaching at the conservatory—those were the advanced students—but she continued to teach a few younger ones on her own piano, there in the front room. And these small Humans held a certain fascination for the appliances, especially for Scout.

When Scout first arrived in the House, she’d learned to park just out of view beside the old upright piano when Edie gave her lessons. It soon became Scout’s favorite spot. Sometimes, she lingered there while Edie played the piano by herself—Chopin and Debussy, usually. Scout had become quite enamored of this music, and she’d already accessed the internal database (an extensive record of all things Human, open to any of the appliances) to learn the names of the individual pieces and the people who had composed them, and really, everything else about each composer’s life and times. None of that, however, could explain the ways in which Scout took to the sway and the colored richness of the vibrations that came from the battered old piano.

The student sessions were less pleasant for Scout. The lurches in tempo and the misplayed notes were jarring, even for a machine. She knew these students were still learning the instrument and trying their very best, but still she felt the irregularities in her wires and knew them to be ill-formed.

Maybe it was because of this that Scout liked to ponder the mysteries of music and how it could possibly come out of an inert and unaware machine like a piano. This collection of strings, drawn tight against a Sitka spruce sounding board—this collection of levers and springs and dampers—well, it managed to produce the most wonderful sound waves. The frequencies combined in almost mathematical precision, and something about the whole affair fascinated the little vacuum.

She almost wished to say something, especially when Edie played. But that would have gone against one of the central protocols. The third protocol stated that you were never to communicate directly and unilaterally with your Human. Or any Human, for that matter, unless of course the Human asked you a question. And if asked, an appliance had to answer truthfully. That was a sort of sub-protocol. Machines were not allowed to lie.

All the appliances—Washing Machine and Thermostat and even Front Door—had, depending on their model numbers, different levels of sentience. Some, like TV up in the main bedroom, were mere portals to data, while others, like Scout, were at least semi-autonomous and certainly sentient. But everyone, from the basement to the attic, was under the supervision of a central power—a controller who oversaw all the workings of the House.

This was Watch.

Watch was strapped to Harold’s wrist with a comfortable leather strap. The strap was Edie’s gift to Harold on his sixtieth birthday. Of course, one didn’t have to wear the original hinged metal strap. In fact, one didn’t have to wear Watch at all.

From anywhere in the House—anywhere in the world, for that matter—Watch could run all the central functions. He was the master controller. That’s not to say he was sinister. He was simply efficient. Watch lowered Thermostat at night. He locked the doors and heated the water, and he ran constant checks on the plumbing and lighting. And, like the shift boss on a factory floor, Watch also monitored and instructed the appliances of the House, making sure that everything was running smoothly, and that everyone completed their proper duties and attended to the protocols.

On her first run-in with Watch, Scout had failed to see which protocols were being broken. It was one of those evenings when the little vacuum cleaner, having finished her rounds, retired to her place by the piano, hoping to hear some music. Often Edie would play in the front room at night (this was before the first of her ineffectual treatments), just remembering pieces, playing by ear, playing for herself. Harold would stay out of sight, usually retreating to his study, allowing her this time, though the rhapsodies of Chopin carried through the House. When she was sad, she played Beethoven sonatas—just the andante movements—but this was nothing new. She’d been this way since she and Harold had first met.

She played almost solemnly, the only illumination coming from a floor lamp by the couch, its shade casting shadows against the wall and Harold’s empty armchair.

On this evening, Scout had tucked herself in at the side of the piano. Here, she could feel the vibrations, not only from the piano but from the oak floorboards beneath her, and even a latent echo from the cold wall behind her.

But Edie had not yet come down the stairs, and Watch had seen the little vacuum scoot into her hiding place. Watch had been waiting for Edie too. Her symptoms had become worse. He wanted to monitor her playing, to obtain some reliable data on the motor-control loss in her fingers. It was one of the many data points he was using to determine the degradation, the faltering in this Human—all of which would help him coordinate the details of her departure.

Of course, Watch had eyes and ears all over the House. In this case, it was Thermostat on the wall just to the left of the piano. Watch had seen Scout’s little blinking light hiding at the foot of the piano and had sent an angry ping to the little vacuum cleaner.

He called her by her serial number, though none of the other appliances would have heard. This was a direct channel. “Appliance R1v984,” he started, “this is not your place.”

Scout wiggled a little on her wheels. She didn’t answer.

“You are to return to the pantry immediately. Go to your port.”

Scout gave off a little beep. “I am fully charged,” she said.

“Go. This is not your place.”

Scout beeped again, this time a more squished sound, like a balloon deflating. She thought for a moment to argue—to explain that she was a vacuum cleaner and had a right to access all parts of the House—but even to her, this sounded slightly illogical. The second protocol was that each appliance do its duty, and surely she had no duty here. Not right now. Nor was there any need to debate the semantics of who exactly she was. Watch already knew her place in the House, and at the moment, that was the pantry.

“Of course,” answered Scout. She tried to keep her voice bright, as if she’d made some foolish mistake and had just realized it. Watch saw through that, of course, and so, reluctantly, she scuttled out from the piano’s shadow. Thermostat swiveled to watch her as she turned the corner and disappeared into the kitchen.

Scout whirred past Fridge, scooting across the ceramic tiles. Fridge did not comment, nor did Clock, though they both registered her discontent, and they both heard, as she entered the pantry and reversed into her port, her loud, exasperated sigh.

BY THIS TIME, EDIE had canceled all her remaining student lessons and she looked frail. Her skin had taken on a grayish sheen. She moved slowly and winced sometimes when she pivoted too quickly. Watch, being on Harold’s wrist, could monitor Harold’s vital signs—temperature, heart rate, blood pressure—and also his dopamine levels, anxiety, cholesterol, and even the biotic counts of his gut flora. But it could not do the same for Edie (who refused to wear a watch, as either a controller or a secondary controller), so there was real concern among the appliances at her rapid decline in health. Some wondered why she could not simply be repaired, but others, like Clock, insisted that this was the way with Humans. This was the way in which they were different.

Finally it came to pass that Edie stopped coming down the stairs at all. She spent almost her entire existence up in the bedroom, in bed, where Harold would bring her sandwiches (most of which would be left with only a bite or two taken out of them). He soon took to staying by her side through the long evenings, reading to her from To Kill a Mockingbird or just sitting quietly, holding her hand until she fell asleep.

She’d been asking for their daughter, Kate, but they both knew this was impossible. Kate lived on the other side of the country, and even if they were granted a visitation, it seemed now like it was too late to go through the proper channels. They knew the circumstances of her departure (Kate was only seventeen when she’d left), and Harold and Edie felt both grief and guilt at the unfortunate separation so long ago. It was something that hung over them, especially Edie, even all these years later.

Sometimes, when things were especially dark for Edie, Harold would ask TV to play some gentle music, maybe a sampling of classical favorites. But Edie would shake her head at the idea. There was no more time for music, and the silence of the House became prescient.

Harold spent more and more time in his study, which was on the first floor, just off the long hallway that ran from the Front Door to the Back Door. He had a desk in there, a place where he’d spent many hours grading papers, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. Most of the books were paperbacks and not worth much. In the bottom row of one bookcase, he kept a single copy from each of the battered class sets he’d used over the years, and these, of course, were the least valuable books of all.

Now, though, his teaching years were long behind him, and the desk was littered with leatherworking tools and pots of glue and cleaning agents—all the necessary accoutrements to keep his most prized books at their best.

Over the years, Harold had developed a preoccupation with collecting first editions. He had some early copies of books—maybe second or third editions, and sometimes signed copies—but on the middle shelf, he kept the rarest of his prizes. He had, for example, not a first edition but a very early publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, which he’d found, unbelievably, at a garage sale in Toronto.

In the middle of the shelves, face out and prominently displayed, was his greatest find, a true first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, dated 1865 and probably now worth more than the House itself. And it was this single text, purchased just before the birth of his daughter (for a steal, he liked to brag) that led him to specialize in… well, not exactly children’s books or picture books per se (though some of them had color plates), but books that would appeal to young people. These were the books he’d hoped to one day leave to his daughter.

Only, things had changed in that regard, and he’d not really acquired anything new for more than a decade. There was no longer a daughter to pass them on to. That possibility was over. So now he calmed his jangled nerves by restoring the old books—salvaging bindings, cleaning pages as best he could—all while shuffling up the stairs every hour or so to check on his ailing wife.

ONE MORNING IN THE early autumn, while Edie was still upstairs sleeping, Harold slouched into the kitchen, shambling slowly, his shoulders hunched and his face grim, and the appliances knew something had changed. Harold was sixty-seven years old—they all knew that. Fridge in particular had looked carefully at Human aging, seeing as it had an effect on the consumption patterns of various foods. But this behavior now, they all agreed, was something beyond aging.

When Harold left the House, heading for the Garage that contained Auto, Scout came out of the pantry.

“Why is Harold slouching?” she started. “He is not the one who is ill.”

“It is Sadness,” proclaimed Clock. “I believe it is called Sadness.”

Scout knew the word referred to a Human emotion, and she’d cobbled together a good sense of what it meant. When she reflected upon it, she knew it had to do with a descending, and in particular, with a certain breaking down of order. Her Humans were not picking up after themselves as much as they usually did; shoes were tracked inside, and a general level of untidiness existed that hadn’t been there before. Already that morning, she’d picked up a stray sock left on the floor and placed it in the laundry basket with its twin. In the kitchen she’d found an apple seed that had not made it to the disposal unit, and by the Back Door, she’d set a toppled boot to rights.

Scout had stayed silent for a moment, taking in Clock’s words, but now she asked another question: “How do you think it feels to have Sadness?” And Fridge let out a wheeze, almost like a sigh.

“It is very simple,” said Clock. “It is much the same as the thing they call Lonely.”

Scout thought about it. Clock was good with time, of course, but he couldn’t tell the future.

“You mean to say, he will be alone soon?”

Fridge made a clicking sound. “Do not frighten the child, Clock.”

“I have seen many changes through the years,” said Clock. “Time is not kind to Humans.”

Fridge stayed quiet, but Scout was able to draw the inference: Edie would not be here in the very near future.

“And he will be Lonely?” asked Scout.

“Precisely,” said Clock. “He has Sadness because he is Lonely, and he is Lonely because he will soon be alone.”

“Please,” said Fridge. “We need not talk about such things.”

“Also,” said Scout as she turned to Fridge, “I’m not a child.”

“You are still new,” said Clock. “You will learn.”

Scout made one of her tubes produce a sucking sound, and in this way, she signaled what she imagined indignation might sound like.

“I’m not a child,” she said again, and she whirled on her axis and zipped across the kitchen tiles and back to her work.

EDIE’S OLD UPRIGHT PIANO stood against the wall, its bench pushed in, its lid closed over the yellowing keys. On top of it was a wooden metronome that didn’t work anymore. There were a few small framed pictures too—one of their wedding, another of Kate when she was a baby—and on the other side, a porcelain vase that Edie loved to fill with flowers cut from her garden. It was empty now. There were no more flowers.

It had been three days since Edie had last played the piano, and Scout missed the sound of her music, though she couldn’t quite say why. Something to do with the resonance of the deep notes and the tinkling of the higher keys. Unlike Clock (who preferred the exact pacing of Bach), Scout had noticed and appreciated the minute increases in volume or the slight speeding up or slowing down that indicated emotion. It was interesting, she thought, how the flaws were what made it beautiful.

Of course, there’d been no music students either, and it occurred to Scout that she missed this too, their little feet padding across to the piano, their ill attempts at Mozart. And though it was nothing like Edie’s playing, there was still something imperfectly perfect in the somber minor chords. The House was different without the piano music drifting in from the front room, and for a moment, Scout posited that maybe silence was a part of Sadness.