860.
HUMMINGBIRD WILL WAIT.
Below it, a timer began: 00:03:00 . Three minutes. The exact amount of time, Priya later calculated, that it would take for Clara’s cortisol levels to drop and her desire for comfort to peak.
Clara nodded, her eyes fixed. “It was sad. I gave it seventy cuddles.”
Priya closed her eyes. Behind her lids, the cartoon sun with the pacifier mouth yawned, and three notes played—a lullaby, a warning, a goodbye.
“Shared gaze increases oxytocin release in both subjects by 34%,” read one internal memo Priya had found buried in the code. “This creates a positive feedback loop: child plays, adult watches, child plays longer, adult watches longer. The family unit stabilizes around the screen.”
Clara was asleep. Peaceful. One arm was stretched out from under the blanket, her small hand resting on the screen of a new tablet—the one from the drawer in the living room, the old one they’d kept for emergencies. The screen glowed eggshell white.
In the dream, she opened the window. The bird flew in and landed on her finger. It weighed nothing. Then it opened its tiny mouth and spoke in her daughter’s voice: “Mama. I feel small.”