Here, in the blue glow of the den after dark, we find our subject alone, yet not alone. She has propped the glowing slab upright against a tower of books, angled it toward her face with the precision of a heron judging the depth of a stream, and now she waits.
Watch closely. She is broadcasting. To whom, she cannot say. Somewhere out in the vast dark, unseen members of her scattered herd are drifting toward her signal, one by one, drawn by an instinct older than the device itself: the pull toward warmth, toward a face that is looking back.
Little glowing hearts begin to rise across the surface of the slab, ascending like bubbles from the riverbed. Each one, we now understand, is another creature announcing its presence. And observe the transformation. The moment the count of watchers climbs, our subject changes. Her voice lifts half an octave. She sits taller. She performs a curious grooming ritual, sweeping a strand of hair behind her ear, though no strand had fallen. She is, in the truest sense, displaying.
"Hey guys," she murmurs, again and again, to arrivals only she can see. "Welcome. Welcome in." She greets each newcomer by name, a roll call of the faithful, and something ancient softens in her face.
For three hours she will hold this vigil, talking gently into the light about nothing, about everything, keeping the little fire burning so the strangers do not scatter back into the cold.
And this, in the end, is the oldest drama of all. A single creature, on a single night, doing the one thing her kind has always done against the long silence: sending a small flame up into the dark, and waiting, patient and hopeful, to see who gathers near it.