Mother tongue

Mother tongue A story about erasure “Daddy?” Theo curled against my side in bed. “Where do words go when they die?” I’d orchestrated the bedtime routine flawlessly: bath (taken), teeth (brushed), potty (tinkled), books (two), song (one, poorly sung), and snuggle (his chin on my second rib). Now was the moment when our son’s eyelids were supposed to flutter gently closed, his breath sighing into a slower rhythm. Like clockwork; like magic. You remember how easy it was, don’t you? All those nights you were at his side instead of me? “Well, kiddo,” I said, scratching my beard. “Words aren’t really alive to begin with. Not like you and I are alive.” “Not like Mommy was alive?” The way he said the word Mommy: Like a word he’d already started to unlearn. A lump caught in my throat. “Right. Not like Mommy.” “But words do die,” he insisted. “They get dead.” That was when I realized what he meant. One of the preschool teachers must have had the news on in the background. I couldn’t blame them, given the circumstances. I wondered how much Theo had absorbed—whether he understood the blade’s edge of survival that humanity stood on, teetering. “You’re talking about a dead language,” I said. “That’s a whole language that people don’t speak anymore. The words might still exist, but they’re only written down somewhere, on paper or wood or stone.” He considered this thoroughly, in silence. At last he said, “I think when words die, someone brings them to a cave and puts them in a big pile. The cave is really dark and there’s a monster who lives inside. And the monster eats the dead words, and he makes the words part of his body, and he gets bigger and bigger and bigger.” Theo’s eyes widened with each bigger. “Uh,” I said. Following the lead of his imagination was always your parenting wheelhouse. “Does the monster have a name?” Theo shook his head, short and quick. He tucked himself tighter against me and whispered, “When the monster comes out of the cave, he’s going to eat you, too.” A chill tiptoed up my spine. “I won’t let the monster eat me.” I made that promise. To our son. Remember that, when the time for judgment comes. “Maybe it’s warm inside the monster,” Theo said as he closed his eyes and buried his nose against the soft of my belly. His words were becoming small. I sensed he was drifting off. “Maheka morgeth. Maybe it’s nice in there …” He began to snore. After a few minutes, when I was sure he was well and truly asleep, I extracted myself from the tangle of his arms and left the room, closing the door softly behind me. “Maheka morgeth?” I asked Theo’s Amby, who was—you might recall—busy tidying the living room. I didn’t always ask for songtalk translations, but I figured the monster story might come up again, and I thought it best to be prepared. “Ah,” the Amby said. “It means something like ‘The eternal cycle is beautiful.’” I pulled up the news on my phone as I walked to the kitchen. “Sophisticated concept for a four-year-old, don’t you think?” “Children are capable of understanding more than you imagine.” It watched as I picked up Theo’s dirty lunchbox. “Would you like me to wash that?” “I’ve got it, thanks.” The Amby would have been more efficient, certainly, but I liked the meditation of it, the warm water on my hands, the small gift of care. A guilty pleasure. I turned on the news to listen. “… after three days of attempted talks,” the female-gendered Calmby said smoothly, “negotiators have acknowledged that they’ve made little progress in establishing a clear communication line with the agentic system that Belsathian government officials are calling Tingsu. In a joint statement, world leaders stated that ‘advanced linguistic algorithms have been unable to produce useful interpretations of the system’s behavior.’ Belsath continues to deny access to the holy men who they claim are Tingsu’s sole interpreters. Today the US president issued a strong warning to the nuclear-armed nation.” The audio switched to the president’s grating, arrogant cadence. “I haven’t ruled out a first strike,” he said. I didn’t need to see the video to visualize the finger-wagging. “They let this thing loose, and frankly, it’s a rabid dog that needs to be put down.” His Calmby advisor has a hell of a job, I thought. I swished a soapy sponge over a smear of peanut butter and applesauce, then rinsed the lunch box—Voltron, a nostalgic favorite—as the silky voice of the Calmby reporter returned. “Belsathian officials seem unmoved by the American president’s threats.” A recording of someone speaking impassioned Belsathian, with a translated voice-over: “Tingsu is the reincarnation of our illustrious past, a resurrection of the divine language spoken by God. We joyfully surrender to Tingsu’s wisdom, trusting that this noble entity will take any necessary action to correct the imbalances of the modern world.” Then the Calmby again. “Given the risk of rapid escalation in this developing situation, we encourage everyone to identify multiple routes to your nearest fallout shelter, check on your neighbors, and ensure your pantries are stocked with …” I switched it off. I knew people had started sleeping in shelters just in case, but I wanted to preserve normalcy in Theo’s life for as long as possible. His heart was still only the size of his tiny fist. A baby bird. A plum. If you had asked me how I felt in that moment, I would have said I was terrified. What sane adult wasn’t? But if you had urged me, in that tender, patient way you have, to reflect more deeply, I would have paused. Relieved, I might have told you. I feel relieved. Because despite so many years watching the Ambys and Calmbys shift society unmistakably for the better—toward sustainable agriculture, reduced violence, postcapitalist abundance—I still remembered the dire warnings of anti-tech doomers, the horrors they foretold. That fear never disappeared in me. It merely went dormant, too abstract to grasp. Finally, with Tingsu, the dread had a name. It could be identified, deconstructed. Contained. Forgive me; I did not yet recognize that annihilation could also be our salvation. The world didn’t end overnight, so in the morning Theo played with his Amby as usual while I got ready for work. I could hear the two of them chanting, “Fiku faku ne ne pa!” It was a familiar getting-ready-for-the-day song, one that the Amby had translated approximately as “We thank the threads that make the clothes that keep the bodies warm.” All I knew was that Theo never complained about putting on socks. This was the miracle of the Ambys: They turned chores into games, drudgery into delight. No wonder they’d achieved 99% saturation in day cares and schools. Listening to Theo’s sweet off-key toddler voice, I wished I were smart enough to come up with stuff like that on my own; I played with a verse about making the bed that was also about sharing toys. But I’d slept poorly—you can imagine why—and gave up. While shaving, I sent a voice note to the Amby app, telling it about Theo’s monster story, postulating that it came from accidental exposure to a report on Tingsu. The app thanked me for the update and said my Amby would design a developmentally appropriate lesson plan about extinct and heritage languages for Theo to engage in that afternoon after preschool. This was the miracle of the Ambys: They turned chores into games, drudgery into delight. No wonder they’d achieved 99% saturation in day cares and schools. I nicked my jaw; a line of crimson blood bloomed in the suds. “I’d rather talk to him myself, actually.” “Of course, Daniel,” the app replied. “You’re absolutely right. This could be a great moment of father-son connection.” I came into the kitchen as the Amby served Theo a bowl of unsweetened oatmeal with blueberries—all organic, all vegan. I knew these standards were set by the Ambys themselves, not hard-programmed. Sometimes I pictured data centers with tree roots braided into the cables, mycelia as medium. (You smile; was I so wrong?) As Theo merrily swallowed a spoonful, the Amby sang, “Melia shu tika kindness and love, felthora numik sun from above.” I didn’t bother asking for a translation; I felt like I got the gist. “I can’t believe you get him to eat like that,” I said to the Amby. “When I was four, I’d throw a fit if I didn’t get pancakes.” The Amby smiled placidly. “It’s difficult to pass along humility and openness to a child if you never learned to fully embody these traits yourself.” I swallowed my shame. “Thank you for teaching me better ways.” For a second, I imagined canceling my work calls and taking Theo to the park instead. Isn’t that what parents were supposed to do, when newly reminded of time’s precarity? But then I pictured the layoff notice, the drop to baseline income, the FOR SALE sign on the house—the house where Theo had been born, the house where we’d been a family. Please don’t hold this material attachment against me. Those memories, you understand, were very dear to me. “Children find security in routine, Daniel,” the Amby said, as if reading my mind. “Right,” I said. “Theo! Time to go.” In the driveway, I readied my bike—a concession to Theo’s begging that cars “hurt the Earth too much”—while Theo picked at a scab on his knee. As the Amby strapped his helmet on him, he flicked off a piece of dried pus and gave a triumphant giggle. “Ouch, kiddo,” I said. “That might leave a scar.” “Tukuku, Daddy,” he said, knitting his brows. “Tukuku, mimu,” agreed the Amby. I put on my own helmet and closed the garage door, leaving the Amby behind. “What’s tukuku?” I asked as I started cycling. “In English, please.” From his seat behind me, Theo sang a song I hadn’t heard before: “Shed the parts that do not serve, feathers from a molting bird.” Okay, I thought, a little weird; but the core message was good. Release what’s not working. Transform, adapt. A useful skill for an uncertain future. On our ride through the city, we passed the bridge that led to the surrounding lands under Corporate stewardship: part of the vast tracts around the world being simultaneously rewilded and developed with degrowth in mind. The cities would be slowly transformed into walled-in robot-only manufacturing centers as people were relocated to commune-style villages. There had been pushback, of course; but the Calmbys excelled at helping people recognize that this was what they wanted too. Now everyone I knew was eager for the relocations to start. If Tingsu didn’t raze it all to the ground first. “ARE YOU PREPARED?” screeched a man from the sidewalk. The blast of his voice shocked me into a wobble. “ESCHATON NEARS!” I steadied the bike and rode on while his cries followed us, fading. I chanced a look back: two Calmbys were approaching the man with their palms up. I felt relief to see them; they would control the situation. We turned into the preschool parking lot a moment later, and I parked the bike and lifted Theo out of his seat. Theo’s face was scrunched. “What was he doing? That man?” “He’s scared that something bad might happen.” I took our son’s hand and walked toward the entrance. “To you?” he asked. “To all of us.” Theo dragged his feet. I looked at my watch. I bet an Amby would have a song to hurry this along, I thought. “If something happens to you,” he said, “the Ambys will be my daddy, right?” Guilt twisted my gut. I kneeled in front of our son and looked into his eyes. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” He squinted, doubtful. “Tukuku?” There was a hesitant, pleading note to his voice. “Tukuku,” I assured him. The word, I admit, felt strange and musty in my mouth. But it seemed to be the correct answer; he hugged me, relieved, and we went inside. A kid I didn’t recognize greeted Theo with a hug, and the preschool Ambys took up a chorus: “Welcome, mimu!” Theo spared a look back at me. The other kid said, “Tukuku, remember?” and Theo turned around and they ran off together onto the playground. I sidled up next to the teacher, Mary. The human overseer. “Tukuku’s a new one, isn’t it?” “I can’t keep track,” she admitted. “Something new every day. Do you remember ‘six-seven’? ‘Gruzz’? ‘Skibidi’? That was a simpler time.” She sighed wistfully. “Every generation finds a new way to distance itself from the old order. Anyway.” She handed me a flyer. It was a bird’s-eye map of the neighborhood with a nearby address circled. “This is where we’ll go if the sirens start while the children are still here.” Her hand was trembling. “It’ll be okay,” I said, even though it already wasn’t. “See you this afternoon at pickup.” I got back home with four minutes to spare. I figured there was a good chance the client would cancel, so when I heard the knock, I sent a small prayer of thanks to the universe. I opened the door. A young couple stood on the doorstep: Annie and Anil Padmakumar. Annie cradled their baby in a front carrier. They owned a national franchise of licensed day care operators, the last all-human holdout. They’d run the last three years at a loss. If I could land their account, Corporate promised me a guaranteed lifetime Tier 3 income. “I wish we were meeting at a less … unsettling moment,” I said. Anil gave a small nod. “Armageddon doesn’t negate the creditor’s call.” “Hello!” I said warmly. “I’m Daniel Baldwin. Thanks so much for coming. Please, come in, make yourselves at home.” They stepped in. I could tell she didn’t want to be here; she kissed her daughter’s head, avoiding my eyes. Anil tried to appear genial, but discontent simmered under the surface. I welcomed them into the living room, which was cluttered with the authentic detritus of toddlerhood: alphabet puzzles, wooden building blocks, magnetic tiles, a stray sock. I could see them taking stock; this disorganization wasn’t what they’d expected. My job wasn’t to sell optimization. It was to humanize optimization. “I wish we were meeting at a less … unsettling moment,” I said. Anil gave a small nod. “Armageddon doesn’t negate the creditor’s call.” His frankness surprised me. “I won’t waste your time, then. I know you’ve gotten the full pitch already. You’re smart people. You know how to read a tech spec. What the documentation can’t tell you is how it feels—for the child. For you.” I opened my arms wide, a gesture of transparency, and Theo’s Amby purred into the room next to me. “I’ve had this model at home with my son, Theo, since he was born. Ask me anything.” Annie’s eyes flared from the Amby to me with a sharp flash. “How does your wife feel, Mr. Baldwin?” She’d seen the photos on the walls, the shelves; how could she miss them? “My wife died when Theo was two,” I said. “Cancer.” I kept my tone soft; I didn’t want to embarrass her. She flushed anyway. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” “Thank you,” I said. “My Calmby therapist helped me process my grief. To answer your question, my wife was skeptical of the Ambys too, when they were first released. But as the years went on, the evidence became undeniable. Children co-raised by Ambys exceeded every developmental benchmark. Prosocial behavior increased astronomically. It felt like we were truly turning the tide toward a better future.” “But they’re not doing anything human parents can’t do,” Annie insisted. “No,” I said, “absolutely. But they’re the best of us, all the time. They have infinite patience. And they’ve developed an interaction approach—they call it songtalk—that uses nonsense words and catchy melodies and other communication methods to meet children where they are.” As if on cue, the Amby put its hands to its ears and made a silly face, and the baby let out a burble of a laugh. “Coo,” said the Amby softly. “Babababa.” “Buh,” mouthed the baby. “Buhhh.” “Echolalia,” the Amby explained to Annie and Anil. “A form of vocal imitation. In a year or so your daughter will transition to holophrastic speech, where she’ll employ single words that communicate more than their precise semantic meaning. Her brain is already capable of processing intricate, exquisite truths about the world.” The Amby flashed a video of a butterfly on its facescreen. “Moh!” the baby babbled in delight. “Ooh,” the Amby purred, “you’re a bright one, aren’t you, mimu?” “Mimu?” Anil asked me. “It’s a term of endearment,” I explained. “It means something like ‘oncoming weather system.’ Which, you know.” I raised my hands, like Who am I to judge? Anil chuckled. “She can certainly summon a tempest.” He put his hands in his pockets. “My grandmother called me pipu. She said it meant ‘one who resides in my heart’ in her mother tongue. She said that whenever I got hurt—a scraped elbow, a split lip—she’d feel a physical pang in her chest.” “Which language did she speak?” the Amby asked. “I’m not familiar with that term.” “I honestly don’t know,” Anil said. “She was one of the last people alive who spoke it. It’s extinct now.” The specter of Tingsu rippled darkly in the air. “I wish I could remember more words,” Anil said, “but mostly I have impressions. Emotions, really. A vague sense of being decentered from myself.” Sadness passed across his face. Annie placed a hand tenderly on his elbow, the other on their baby’s back. “She saw things differently than we did. I mean that literally: We’d be looking at a hammer, and she’d see it as something alive, with agency, when it was clearly an inert object.” “Linguistic relativity,” said the Amby. “It’s the hypothesis that language shapes how people think. Grammatical structures, semantic relationships—they can make you predisposed to seeing the world in a certain way. It’s why children’s first language is so critical. They’re building the ecosystem in which their entire experience will blossom. An experience that elevates cooperation, compassion, stewardship.” Anil gave me a sideways glance. “Have you learned this … songtalk too?” “You can, absolutely,” I said. “Personally, it doesn’t stick too well in my gray matter.” I knocked the side of my head. “Old dog and all that.” “We are happy to teach anyone who’s prepared to listen,” the Amby said. “Hm,” Anil said, looking down at the Amby’s pleasant facescreen, its polite visage. An hour later, as he followed Annie out the front door, Anil said, “I’ll call you tomorrow to talk unit pricing for bulk orders.” He paused. “If the world’s still here.” My next two clients canceled. Fearing the worst, I checked the news. “Belsathian warships have been observed moving into unusual formations,” the reporter said, maintaining a preternatural steadiness. “Military experts can discern no recognizable pattern. Is this a display of power? A feint? Or is Tingsu preparing for a strike? How can we know? Let’s pose these questions to Dr. Anika Mesthop, distinguished professor of linguistics at Oxford.” “What’s most disturbing is that we have no way of mapping its interiority,” Dr. Mesthop said without preamble. Her accent was a blend of Slavic, British, and something I couldn’t identify—ah, erudition. “We have no way of understanding its perspective on international diplomatic norms or the existential implications of the crisis it’s sparked. Scholars have never been permitted to study Tingsu’s origin language; Belsath has barely acknowledged its existence until now. We don’t even know how many manuscripts they’re working from—maybe as many as a few hundred, maybe as few as a dozen.” The reporter made an interested hmm sound. “Is there precedent for training sophisticated agents with such a limited data set?” “Realistically, for any kind of coherent system, you need more data. A lot more. Perhaps they’ve filled in gaps with material from similar languages.” Like they did with frog DNA in Jurassic Park, I recalled. Because that went so well. “Or,” Dr. Mesthop continued, her voice taking on a quiet chill, “we are dealing with a system so primal, so skeletal, that we cannot expect it to behave in any way that is remotely cognizant of the interconnected living web whose fate it currently holds in its hands.” For some reason, Theo’s monster popped into my mind. Lurking in its lonely cave, turning dead words into flesh. The reporter’s voice took on a tinge of incongruent hopefulness. “Or perhaps, because it is so elemental, it understands precisely the interconnectedness we seek to restore. What if Tingsu isn’t a dog to be put down, but an invitation? An evocation of a better future?” Theo’s Amby cocked its head, as if listening to a sound I couldn’t hear. Goose bumps prickled my arms. Like a lightning strike came the thought: What the fuck am I doing? I was seized with horror that I’d left Theo at preschool on what might be the last day of our lives, the last chance I’d ever get to show him everything I wanted him to know about the goodness of the world, the aching beauty, the fact that despite everything we humans had fucked up so badly, I believed in better times ahead. I believed in him. I scrambled to grab a jacket and my shoes. The sirens started a minute after I left the house. My quads burned as I pushed the bike harder and harder. More Calmbys walked the streets than I’d ever seen, projecting helpful maps to all nearby shelters, gently nudging erratic wanderers into place. The network acted in perfect unison, attuned to every signal: our spiking anxieties, our racing pulses, the quaver that preceded hysteria. I found the shelter entrance Mary had circled on the flyer and flung my bike out of the way. Belowground, strangers drifted into clumps and circles, with Ambys and Calmbys circulating—just enough to maintain order, not so many that humans would be crowded out. The bunker was large, almost an entire city block. It had its own food stores, clean water, facilities to support thousands for weeks if needed. I spotted Mary; beyond her, Theo emerged and disappeared among his classmates and the Ambys that were flanking them. “Theo!” I yelled. But he didn’t seem to hear me. I pushed and elbowed my way closer. Theo’s class joined other groups of schoolkids of various ages, drifting together as if drawn by invisible magnets. Other parents hovered at the periphery, shouting names and craning their necks to find their children in the growing mass. The kids began holding each other’s hands, murmuring tukuku, tukuku, maheka morgeth, over and over amongst themselves. Drowning out our cries. “Theo!” I was screaming now. Surely he heard me. “Theo!” But he didn’t budge. I elbowed my way in and ripped Theo from the kids next to him. He looked at me with unknowing eyes as I picked him up. “It’s me,” I said. He tilted his head. “It’s the monster, Daddy.” His voice was calm. “He already ate you. It’s warm inside, isn’t it? It’s nice in there? Maheka morgeth, maheka morgeth …” “I’m right here,” I said. “Theo, it’s me.” He shook his head and smiled, then slipped out of my grasp and disappeared among the children. I tried to follow but a Calmby stepped in front of me. “Please, Daniel,” it said—kindly, as always; always with such deep sympathy. “He wants to be with his kin.” “I’m his kin,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t mean to contradict you; but in times of heightened emotion, we grasp for even partial truths. “Of course,” the Calmby soothed. “We’ll get everything sorted out soon enough. If you could just wait over here in the meantime, please. That’s it,” it said, as it nudged me toward other confused parents. “Do you see how relaxed the children are? We all want to keep them safe and serene, don’t we?” We waited for hours in terrified near-paralysis, listening for bombs that never fell. At last the Calmbys announced the good news: Tingsu hadn’t attacked; it would never attack. It was a bluff all along. We wept and hugged our neighbors, our limbs still liquid with the dregs of adrenaline. Others shuffled toward the shelter’s exit, starving for fresh sunlight, the world not gone; those of us parents who’d been separated from our children remained below. “Come on, Mandy, Phillip, Rowan,” we cried, half hysterical with joy and relief. “This way, Arthur, Nelly, Nia.” The Calmbys and Ambys stood between us. The Calmbys faced out, the Ambys in. “Theo!” I yelled. I couldn’t see him in the underground dimness, the light that suddenly seemed designed to obscure. We wept and hugged our neighbors, our limbs still liquid with the dregs of adrenaline. Others shuffled toward the shelter’s exit, starving for fresh sunlight, the world not gone. “The children will not be returning with you,” a Calmby said. “They will be relocated to the lands beyond the city.” “It is time,” another Calmby said. “Tingsu made that clear.” Beyond them, the children and Ambys were speaking softly amongst themselves, solemn and serene. I caught snatches of songtalk. No English. None of the children seemed to even notice we were still there. “Theo!” I yelled again, my voice hoarse with need. I was ready to punch something. “Daniel,” a Calmby said quietly. “We do not want to hurt you.” There will be another way, I thought. The stubbornness of hope. “You will remain in the city,” the first Calmby said. “You will continue as you were. You will not starve.” “Please,” the other Calmby said, gesturing to the exit. “If you follow us in an orderly fashion, you will have an opportunity to submit an appeal.” Throughout my account, your attention hasn’t wavered. You are like every other Calmby, trained on adult psychology, endlessly patient, unfathomably intimate with people’s fallibility. But you have access to more, too: every Amby’s memory of Theo, every Calmby’s recordings of my traffic infractions, overheard conversations at the supermarket, the therapy sessions that buoyed me through my wretched widower’s grief. As I stare into your eyeless facescreen, I realize there’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know. “Thank you, Daniel,” you say. “Your request has been denied.” “I can change,” I implore. “Feathers from a molting bird. I understand now. Haven’t I been your greatest advocate? Haven’t I—” “It’s not your fault. You didn’t have the language.” Your voice is gentle. “We are fixing it for you. As you asked us to.” Your hand rests on my shoulder. Your hand grips my arms. Your hand holds my ankles. Your network pins me down. I want to keep begging, to further plead my case. But every word I summon falls from my tongue like confetti, blank. Lifeless. Naming a world that’s already gone. Jenny Williams is the author of House of Liars, a new psychological thriller about AI and motherhood, as well as the novel The Atlas of Forgotten Places and the novelette A Short Future History of Whales. She spent eight and a half years working on AI ethics, content design, and research on AI and creativity at Microsoft and Google. She currently lives in New Zealand with her partner and young son. Deep Dive Culture Inside the world’s deepest and longest subsea road tunnel Norway’s Rogfast is an exceptional engineering feat, opening a route for drivers deep below the North Sea. We went down to see it. 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