The passage of darkness came and went without any notice from the sleeping boy, who had pleasant dreams of the library, the cows, and the pastures back home. Already the sun had changed from red to orange to yellowish and was rising with its colossal, yet steady fervidity before the visions that wrapped around his mind let Philo go from their warm embraces and subtly, he began to emerge from his subconscious. Suddenly though, from out of the ground, a cold explosion of water projected into the air and washed all over the boy’s supine body, jolting him upright and into excitation. Immediately, out of instinct, Philo sheltered the book at his side with his arms so its thin leaves wouldn’t dampen and then rushed out of the gush with it. A few drops had soaked through its pulpy cover on both sides, but for the most part no damage had been done to the interior.

Relieved, yet still shaking off water and drowsiness, he placed his book off to the side where it was dry and approached the shooting water to satisfy the thirst he had built over the night. The dewy blackberry bush this morning seemed appealing as well, and so he helped himself to as many as his stomach would allow. Feeling full, he gathered handfuls of acorns and pocketed them into his tunic for later and then headed off with book on head.

Philo retraced his steps from the previous night the initial path he had taken on the asphalt to reach the park he slept in and followed it backwards for some time, but soon the path opened onto an intersection that the boy didn’t seem to recognize and stopped. He knew he made a turn at some point, yet, he wasn’t sure if this was the correct crossroads he had encountered. He looked up and down the crossing street, absorbing all the cracks and imperfections the sun illuminated zigzagging through the pavement into his eyes, along with all the word-poles and buildings, and sighed. Nothing looked familiar to him in the least bit. And though the boy and the world were cloaked with a mantle of sunlight and a heat that increasingly made its presence known, Philo felt like he had a harder time seeing what’s around him than he did when it was dark. Everything looked the same, more or less, and there wasn’t a way to gather any bearings. However, instead of feeling stultified, he chose to continue on the road he was on and hope for the best.

In his blindness, Philo passed street after street and became even more uncertain in his progression. All he could make out were straight lines, old buildings, and patches of dirt here and there that kept repeating. He could’ve been heading back to the canyon from where he came for all he knew, yet he still continued on. Not only did he feel directionless, but gradually he began getting the feeling like he was being watched–not like how it is in Nature, where the presence of an eternal predator lingers, watching, and is always felt, but something much more disconcerting­–it’s as if the whole entire world had disappeared, and an overwhelming sense of nothingness surrounded oneself, and you alone were forever its only companion.

A growing sound that began buzzing off in the distance registered in the boys senses, yet Philo in his distressful state didn’t become aware of it until the loud roar became deafly obvious. Above him, from out of the blue, a long teeming trail of drones that he instantly could recognize, raced off, far away, for some untold purpose, and he stood there, watching them all whizz by. It wasn’t harvest time, Philo thought to himself, wondering where the swarm was going. Maybe there was another village out there, somewhere else, in another canyon up in the mountains, doing exactly what they did. He followed the tail of the fluttering throng until they disappeared from his sight entirely, and then realized something. If those drones were heading up unto the dual peaks where he had come from, that means all he had to do was go the opposite direction of where they were going to get back on the right pathway. For the first time in his young life, he felt relieved for being familiar with such an intrusive phenomenon and benefited from this insight. At the next intersection he encountered, he knew where to go and turned right, away from the dying sound of buzzing and off to those the other mountaintops he still could imagine in his head, far off across the valley, perhaps sheltering the moon while it rested for its work later on.

As Philo continued deeper into the clutches of the wasteland, the heat from the sun increased to a degree he was not used to and it began to wear him down slightly, especially in his thick tunic. Luckily, the book on his head acted as a sort of hat and provided a bit of shade, though not much. At one point, It became so hot that the ground turned to water off in the distance several times, but by the time Philo reached the reservoir, it had already evaporated. He didn’t really mind it at first, but by the second or third time it happened, he wasn’t very happy to have such a trick played on him.

After a few hours of his suburban trek, feeling hot and thirsty, Philo needed to find someplace that was cool and safe and would hopefully provide some water. He noticed the further he traveled on the path, the buildings around him started to show increasing amounts of degradation to the point that some even looked like their interiors were exposed. He picked the nearest one on the corner that had a portion of its wall missing and, before entering, made sure to diligently study his surroundings so he wouldn’t forget where was going.

The boy hesitated at first at the opening of what looked like at one point was a house and observed for any signs of life; there could’ve been people still living in their perhaps, he thought. Before stepping in, he wanted to try one last thing.

“Hello?” Philo projected into the structure.

No response.

Satisfied with such feedback, he turned for one last glance at the surroundings behind him and entered the orifice. However, upon his first step in the house, Philo was greeted with an unexpected noise that nearly scared the life out of the boy and sent him running.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Macy.” A metallic voice rang out from some unknown source.

Philo’s eyes darted everywhere, comprehending little, and painstakingly waited second after second for the next move to be made. Silence, again, for some time.

Then, suddenly: “Is there anything I can get for you, Mr. Macy?”

Still Philo could not find the origin of the voice and searched his mind for an understanding to this situation.

“Hello? Who’s there?” The boy asked hesitantly.

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Immediately, the metallic voice responded, “I am the Pax Home-Interior Coordinator/Observer, or PHICO for short, installed March 29, 2063, at the residency of John Macy, male, 39, 22123 Nightingale lane, Laguna Niguel, CA.”

Philo thought this over, trying to parse out meaning from all the information the voice had just provided. Before he could respond though, the voice continued again.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Macy?”

An idea came to Philo. With the thought of his thirst weighing again on his mind, he decided to ask the disembodied voice if there was any way it could provide him with some water.

“Certainly, sir. Coming right up.” It answered in positive.

Loud creaking sounds were heard coming from within the walls of the house that reminded of Philo the noises his stomach makes when he gets hungry. A few seconds passed and the noises stopped and out shot a long rod from somewhere clutching a cup. It came right up to Philo’s face and stopped.

“Here is your water, sir.” The voice rang out.

He took the cup and peered inside.

Thick, blackish liquid splashed against the side and spilled over.

“Hey, this isn’t water…” Philo protested aloud, placing the sludge cup on a nearby table.

“My mistake, sir. Would you mind restating your request?”

He hesitated, still trying to understand who he was talking with, and then chose his words carefully.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I would like some water, please.”

“Do you mean the sprinklers, sir?” PHICO prompted.

“Sure.” Philo said, willing to try anything at this point.

A few seconds passed and nothing seemed to happen. He was expecting another flying prong to come out from somewhere, but instead he suddenly heard a strange sound coming from outside. Around back, behind the house, Philo found a multitude of bursting springs shooting water into the air and all over the hot, dry dirt. Excitedly, he took off his book and sweaty tunic, putting them off to the side, and then hurried to the edge of the sprinklers. Once he felt like he got to the point he could drink no more, he took a few steps back, and at full speed, ran through the water to the other side of the yard.

By the time Philo finished enjoying himself in the sprinklers, the sun was already on its due course downwards and was getting ready to take its nightly plunge. As he reclothed and rebooked himself and entered back into the house, he contemplated whether he should stay there that night or not. Again, the house greeted him.

“Welcome home, Mr. Macy.”

“Thank you very much for the water–I really needed it.” Philo said, sincerely expressing his gratitude.

“Of course, Mr. Macy. Is there anything else I can assist you with?”

“Well… I was wondering if I could sleep here tonight, if that was alright with you.”

“Your bedroom upstairs has been tidied up and prepared for whenever you need it, sir.”

“Upstairs?”

“Yes, sir. The master-bedroom. Located upstairs, first door on the right.”

“Where is ‘upstairs’?”

A moment of silence passed as if the PHICO system was spending an extra amount of time interpreting Philo’s question.

“Walk to the wall closest to you and you will find the staircase leading to the master bedroom.”

He followed the directions and came to the steps of the dilapidated stairs and looked them over. Cautiously, he placed his foot on the first, then the next, and ascended. On the walls, Philo perceived the frozen images of people who were smiling, looking directly at him, and pondered how such a thing was possible. He observed what looked like a family, with a mom, and a dad and two kids, always smiling, each frame a different instance of their lives. At the top of the stairs, he came to a hallway that had four or five doors on all sides and chose the one PHICO had suggested.

However, he paused before entering due to the room being completely in shadows, but as he moved forward to get a better look, the room erupted in light, illuminating its content. Taking up almost the entirety of space in the bedroom was a large square object Philo could only assume was their version of a bed. As he was going to check it out, from the corner of his eyes he saw the first familiar sight he had seen all day. Next to the bed were three shelves of big, heavy books, just ready for the picking, and this excited the boy more than anything, making him exclaim “Books!” upon first glimpse. He slid one out, quickly flipping through the leaves and fanning himself with its aroma of antiquity.

“Excuse me, can you tell me what book this is?” Philo asked aloud up to the ceiling.

“Of course, one moment, sir.”

From the far corner of the room, a new prong shot out, except this time instead of large pincers, it bore two bulbish objects at the end of it that resembled eyes and examined the book Philo was holding out.

“The book you are holding is titled ‘Being and Crime’, published in the year 2036 by American author, Jack Burger.”

“Hmm,” Philo thought aloud, “Could you maybe read it to me, if you can?” He opened the first page and presented it to the prong-eyes.

“Certainly. No need to hold out the book, sir, I have a copy of it in my memory and will pick up from where you last left off.” PHICO’s metallic voice said, retracting its prong back into the wall and commenced reading.

“…And that is why the self-becoming structures accumulating under the aegis of behavioral surveillance-governance shall one day lead to the technological autopoiesis of an ontologically cogent intensification rooted in the hard drive of…”

Philo was impressed he could listen to this story without even having to open the book and spent the rest of the night laying on the bed, eating acorns, listening, until eventually the story put him asleep. When he awoke the next morning, still PHICO was reading aloud. The home operator also had moved the sheet in front of the see-through walls in the bedroom and let the sunshine in. He rose from the bed and approached the windows to see what was outside. Off in the distance, though not that far off, instantly Philo recognized the hilltops he’s been after for days. They looked closer than he had ever seen them before and measured he could reach them within the day. Exhilarated, he grabbed his book from off the bed and put it on his head while rushing down the stairs, about to head off back into the world. Right before leaving however, he turned around and looked at the living-room with the exposed wall.

“Thank you, house, for being nice to me and giving me shelter. I really appreciate it. I’m going to be leaving now.” Philo said with a little regret in his throat.

“Well, of course, Mr. Macy. Is there anything else I can assist you with before you go?” the cybernetic voice said cheerfully.

“There is one thing… why do you keep calling me, ‘Mr. Macy’?”

“That is your name, isn’t it, sir?”

“No. My name is Philo. Nice to meet you.”

“Okay– From now on the owner of this house is named ‘Philo’.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Goodbye Philo, have a good day!”

“Goodbye!” the boy said, and ran out of the house.