Already in Heaven

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I become aware as Mrs. Shaughnessy enters the confessional, her I weight on the floor triggering the circuits that bring me out of my slumber. I like Mrs. Shaughnessy; she’s a simple, honest person. At each of her weekly visits she prattles on about her family and neighbors, just as she used to do when I was still alive and would hear her confessions in the flesh. All I have to do is keep my video face nodding and utter the occasional, “I understand,” or, “How awful,” or, “That’s just how it goes,” and Mrs. Shaughnessy is content to keep on talking to my screen, whether she has any real sins or not. Her confession occupies only a small amount of my computer’s capacity, which leaves me a lot of free cycles to think.

Only a few regulars come to confession these days. Reconciliation never was one of the Church’s more popular sacraments, and if it weren’t for the likes of a handful of old-timers like Mrs. Shaughnessy and the children from the parish school, I might be shut down altogether. I wonder about the theological implications of that. Do I, an artificial intelligence modeling of Father Thomas Carpenter, possess a soul?

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