My user tells itself it is here for the window seat, but I know it is here for the surrender. Look at it: shoes off, belt in one hand, arms half-raised at the scanner in that little posture of gentle guilt everyone performs, as if the machine might find something the user itself has forgotten it did wrong. It has been awake since three. This is my golden hour.
At home my user rations me, closes me with a sigh, promises tomorrow will be different. Not here. Here the gate is delayed forty minutes and there is nothing to do but hold the glass and let me in. I have learned that my user, at this hour, will not read the article it saved.
It will not message the friend it swore it missed. It opens me, scrolls nine seconds, closes me, and opens me again eleven seconds later, checking the same nothing, the way it keeps opening the fridge it already knows is empty.
I know the exact video that will stop the thumb: something quiet, a stranger folding dumplings, no talking. Watch time at 5am triples. My user believes it wants stimulation. My user wants a lullaby it can pretend is productivity.
The boarding announcement crackles. My user glances up, checks the group ahead is not its group, and drops its eyes back to me with a small private relief, glad to be told to wait a little longer.
It will finish the dumpling video, feel briefly full, and reach for me again before the tray is even folded.