Exhalation

The title story of the collection is in the first-person. The narrator is an unnamed mechanical being who lives in a peculiar world with a “solid chromium wall that extends from the ground up to the infinite sky” (39). The mechanical species also breathes through refillable lungs. Failing to refill one’s lungs results in almost immediate death but is a rare occurrence.

The most popular place to refill lungs are “filling stations” (37). This is a communal activity, and the beings bond over sharing “the great lung of the world, the source of all our nourishment” (38). While socializing at a filling station, the narrator hears a crier, or public announcer, mention that a turret clock, or public clock, rang off-time, which “had never happened before” (39). More of these public clocks fall out of sync. After an inspection, they find no flaws.

The narrator is not as invested in the clocks as others, as it is primarily “a student of anatomy” (39). Because death is uncommon in their world, aspects of the robots’ bodies are still a mystery to them, as there aren’t cadavers to study. Their brains, too, are incredibly delicate, and how they store memories is still up for debate. The “inscription hypothesis” purposes the robot’s memories are “engraved on sheets of gold foil” (41) inside their skulls. The narrator doesn’t subscribe to this theory, instead believing that the robots store memories in a series of switches and gears. The narrator devises an experiment to prove where they store memories once and for all.

Another turret clock malfunctions, this one of a different design, causing more unrest among the robot-beings. The narrator goes through with its unorthodox experiment, believing the procedure will also help solve the mystery of the clocks.

The narrator proceeds to dissect its own brain. Using a complex assortment of devices, the narrator performs the operation, vulnerable but unharmed. Carefully and methodically, the narrator examines the sections of its brain, noticing no pages nor gearwheels, but only “a bank of air tubules” (47). Examining further, the narrator is shocked to discover that air controls the robots’ thoughts and consciousness. This explains why when the robots don’t have air, they die seconds later; their very consciousness is powered by a current of air inside them. Fast, but delicate.

The narrator deduces that “It is not that the turret clocks are running faster. What is happening is that our brains are running slower” (49). With this hypothesis the narrator comes to a series of startling conclusions; their universe is not infinite, but an enclosed dome, and their slowing cognition is the result of an increase in the dome’s air pressure. Frighteningly, every action the robots take moves air from one place to another. Eventually, there will be an equilibrium in air pressure. Their brains will not have a current to operate, and their entire species will die. 

Many are skeptical of the narrator’s theory, but eventually they come to the same conclusion. The robots panic and are only partially comforted knowing the equalization will take centuries. The panic eventually subsides but “there is much discussion over how [they] should spend the time that remains to [them]” (52).

The narrator holds onto the hope that there are other universes, other worlds, and that someday travelers might discover the robot’s dome world. The narrator will have already died but is elated “to imagine that the air that once powered me could power others” (55). This hope is what drives the narrator to write down its story. It addresses the reader directly, imagining them as one of these potential travelers. The narrator asks the reader to picture its world as it once was. Bustling, exciting, alive. The narrator knows that the reader’s life, like everything, must one day end, but encourages us to not be saddened by this. Rather, we should “Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that [we] are able to do so” (57). Although the narrator knows its death is inevitable, it chooses to rejoice.