Response No. 39

It has been a difficult year for all of us. Yet, we have managed to adapt to these unprecedented circumstances and found innovative ways to cater to your needs. Since we are always trying to improve our services, your feedback means a lot to us. Hence, we request you to fill up this short anonymous survey, which should take no more than ten minutes. Would you like to proceed?

Yes.

Thank you for choosing to take our survey and helping us improve our services. Your responses will remain completely anonymous.

[Beep]

On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about this past year? (1=extremely bad, 5=extremely good)

Why does everything have to be quantifiable? Do you think after the year we've had, we're still capable of attaching numerical values to feelings? And speaking of how I felt about last year, I started out feeling too much, but then all those feelings got jumbled up and now I don't feel anything at all. There is a void, an emptiness in me. I don't know if this answer will help you.

On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied were you with our services? (1=extremely dissatisfied, 5=extremely satisfied)

I don't know what satisfaction is anymore. I don't even use all of your services. The closest thing I felt using your services – especially the holographic reality things or whatever you call them – was perhaps a sense of escapism. I saw my childhood best friend again. Weirdly enough, we were frolicking in some green field even though we didn't grow up around green fields. It felt like a scene straight from some kids' TV show. Is the holographic thing supposed to do that, creating brand new scenarios? Anyway, I lost touch with her after fifth grade because she migrated with her entire family. I wonder if she's still around, if she has one of these things.

If your answer to the previous question was below 4 (very satisfied), please inform us of any issues you faced, describing in detail.

You see, I used to cry a lot in the early days. Remember what I told you about feeling too many things all at once? The tears were merely a sort of release. It's not that I was mostly sad or depressed; I was just overwhelmed by the whole spectrum of emotions. No wonder I got all burned out. I won't be able to shed a tear now if you commanded me to, like an actor does. The sleep induction device helped in that regard, I guess, but only sometimes. Now I don't need it to go into dreamless, deep sleeping binges, because there is nothing to dream of anymore. Come to think of it, there aren't many things to stay awake for, either.

If you have ever contacted customer care, how would you rate the service on a scale of 1 to 5? (1=extremely unsatisfactory, 5=extremely satisfactory)

It was pretty out of character for me, I have to admit, but I actually called customer care once. Things have come to a point where now I only have different customer care service numbers and helplines saved on my phone. All are numbers which will be answered by complete strangers. Isn't it kind of pathetic that I have nobody real to talk to anymore? Is it the same for you, the person who will compile and categorise and analyse my response? It's okay, you don't need to answer me. Just food for thought.

Anyway, I called customer care and there was a man's voice. I had to get through to him after the automated robotic voice directed me through different buttons. He asked how he could help me. I don't even know why I made that call, because I didn't need help with anything. Or perhaps, I did need help with way too many things, and I was sure he did too, but that was the kind of help none of us were capable of giving. I realised I couldn't answer his question, but I still wanted to keep the conversation going, so I started describing how my day went as if we were close companions and we would be interested in such banal matters.

The man was very polite. He didn't interrupt me once, but once I was finished, once I asked him in return how his day was, he said, "It was fine, dear customer, thank you for asking. But is there anything regarding our services I could help you with?" Then I felt embarrassed, because I was wasting this poor guy's time. I ended the call shortly after, thanking him for listening to my nonsense. Later, I realised that that was the most interesting thing I'd done in weeks.

Any final comments/suggestions?

Am I wasting your time too, the person who's reading all this? I'm sorry, this is one of my bad habits, this inability to be concise. And the inability to quantify things, obviously. You said this wouldn't take more than ten minutes, but I'm definitely taking more than that.

I didn't have much of a choice, really, to subscribe to your services. Every chamber comes with a subscription, so I just went with the flow. It has some perks, like the escapism, but other than that, it's just like any other furniture, meant to hold or carry things. Like how a bed cradles a sleeping body. Like how a cupboard stores utensils. The things that you offer carry some part of me, I know that for sure, but I haven't figured it out.

Thank you for submitting your response. We hope you will continue to use our services.