You're doing really great: How a digital voice helps me on my way
Essay by Dilek Güngör, journalist, and writer from Berlin
You can do this. It’s easy. Take your time. Haven’t you noticed how your stamina has improved? You could climb mountains.
For four months now, I've been taking the stairs in our house as often as I could. On the third floor, I start to wheeze and I’m pretty out of breath once I reach the fourth. Nevertheless.
You’re almost there. Well done.
I also think I did well. Come to think of it, everything sounds good with this smart house voice. I was against it at first but now that I go up and down the stairs twice a day, sometimes even three times, I’ve had a change of heart. She’s generous, always friendly, encouraging, and very gentle.
Come on, you've been doing so well.
And so, I go past the elevator and walk up the stairs, forty-three of them. I don’t need the voice when I go down. I can manage that without encouragement.
Today I feel like having more speed and jumps, and so I run down the stairs. I take two at a time, then three. Maybe I can do four? It works for a while but then the distance is off. Before I hit the floor, I know it’s going to hurt.
Oh, dear.
The voice is smart enough not to say more than that.
Somebody rips open the door on the first floor. Barbara gives me a terrified look.
“Oh, it’s you. Why are you making this noise?
“I tripped,” I say, rubbing my ankle.
“How come?”
“How come?”
“Is the voice broken again?” She checks her cell phone. “No, see, it works.” She holds the display under my nose to prove it. “She should have warned you.”
I move my aching foot carefully and stand up.
“The voice should actually offer you an ice pack right now. Or call the emergency services,” says Barbara.
You could offer me a cool pack, I think to myself.
I can walk and so I go step by step until I reach my front door.
“I'll report this to property management,” says Barbara. “Something must be wrong with your smart house voice. Mine works.”
I go to the pharmacy to get painkillers, ointment, and cool packs. When I come back, Barbara is waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“I reinstalled the smart house voice,” she says.
The little light on my cell phone flashes, the voice identified me correctly.
“Thank you, Barbara.”
I want to check the mailbox and hobble past Barbara, and the stairs.
On foot? Have you gone crazy? With a swollen ankle? Do you want to make it worse than it already is?
The voice sounds like Barbara. I turn the phone off and on again.
“Is it still broken?”
“I don't know, the voice sounds strange.”
“I reinstalled it with mine.”
“We all have our own voices?”
“Sure, you have yours, I have mine and everybody only hears theirs. Didn’t you know hat?”
I liked my voice, but I won’t tell Barbara that.
“My voice will warn you when things get dangerous,” she says, as if she knew what I was thinking.
“But I can have my voice back if I want, right?”
“So that you can fall down the stairs again?”
“So I can go up the stairs.”
She shakes her head. Then she pushes the elevator button for me.
“Take it easy on your ankle. In a few weeks you will be able to climb stairs again, and even mountains. You'll see.”
It sounds a bit like my voice. I could be imagining it though. The elevator door opens.
“I'm going to put the ointment on my ankle again,” I say. “And put your leg up.”
“You doing really great,” says Barbara.