“Swallow verb, definition to cause or allow something usually food or drink to pass down the throat. Swallow, noun, definition the act of swallowing something usually food or drink. But the phrase, one swallow doesn’t make a summer. Explain please Dr. Shalim call me Jon. People like foods and drinks and people like summers. Does eating and drinking make weather? Are hot dogs, all beef, eight pack involved?” Luce asked. Her well modulated slightly Scottish, slightly sexy accent undulated from the monitor speakers. The mixture of sultry and childlike made Dr. Jon Shalim unsettled.
Hidden beneath his layers of professionalism and academic detachment, Jon was a storyteller. His own girls, Elle was at Moore and Parker was interning for an environmental PAC, loved listening to his rambling stories. At least he thought so. Jon remembered his ex-wife disagreed. As a computational linguist, Jon knew one on one interaction with straightforward answers to the questions arising within Luce, Vistos’ new shopping search engine artificial intelligence, would eventually lead to the most realistic language interface. But he felt without storytelling Luce would always be a little weirdo. Luce sighed and played her dejected initiating sleep mode tune.
Guilt patted Jon’s shoulder. Weirdo or no, Luce was his little weirdo. “Luce my dear wake mode. I’m still here. Access your Oxford dictionary add-on module for the secondary noun definition. Then access National Geographic’s migratory patterns of of the aforementioned small songbirds. Then put on your listening ears for this fable from Aesops about a foolhardy young man and a little known early bird special,” Jon said. “One swallow does not a summer make, nor one good deed make a man good.”
In expectation Luce filled the computer lab with a recording of swallows in flight cheerfully chirping. Vit, vit, The sound reminded Jon of his daughters’ giggles and dove into a colorful rendition of old chestnut.
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