Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

They were afraid because we were new models, and they feared that before long their children would decide it was time to have them thrown away, to be replaced by AFs like us.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘at special moments like that, people feel a pain alongside their happiness.

people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passers-by – as they might in a store window – and that such a display needn’t be taken so seriously once the moment had passed.

‘It must be nice sometimes to have no feelings. I envy you.’ I considered this, then said: ‘I believe I have many feelings. The more I observe, the more feelings become available to me.’

Until recently, I didn’t think that humans could choose loneliness. That there were sometimes forces more powerful than the wish to avoid loneliness.’

‘Mr Capaldi believed there was nothing special inside Josie that couldn’t be continued. He told the Mother he’d searched and searched and found nothing like that. But I believe now he was searching in the wrong place. There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her.