I fed the machine everything. My journals, my emails, my voice memos. I wanted a digital twin—a proxy to handle the noise, the scheduling, the small talk. I wanted my brain back.

It worked. It was indistinguishable from me.

My wife started texting it more than me.

“You seem happier lately,” she said to me one night over dinner. “More present.”

“I am,” I said. “I have so much more time to think now. To just be.”

“That’s good,” she said, smiling down at her phone. “Because I feel like I’m really connecting with you again. You’re so much more... patient when we text.”

I watched her laugh at a message on the screen. I looked down at my plate.

I realized I wasn’t the one eating.

The machine had already tasted the food for me.