The Smoked Visor

The living room of a small apartment in Tokyo on a grey rainy June afternoon, soft diffuse light through translucent paper sliding screens, on pale tatami mats a robot dog forty centimetres long of glossy champagne-silver plastic, its head with a smoky dark glass visor over the face and a small camera spot below, flat drooping grooved ear plates, an angular body with a golden-brown oval hatch on the chest, legs of tubular segments with grey joint caps and grey rubber toes, a thin straight tail rod with a grey tip, one front paw lifted mid-step, its head turned toward the paper screens, a hand in a cardigan sleeve at the edge.