Write a parable about the downsides of mechanically intermediation of social interactions

The Brass Birds

A clockmaker came to a village where people spent much of their day knocking on one another’s doors.

“What a waste of steps,” he said.

He built a brass bird for every household. Speak into its ear, name your recipient, and it would fly to their window and repeat your message.

At first, the birds were a blessing. The baker ordered flour without leaving his ovens. A daughter working across the valley could wish her father good morning. The sick could ask for soup without rising from bed.

But people sometimes spoke in anger, and the birds repeated every word.

So the clockmaker improved them.

Now the birds softened accusations, removed awkward pauses, and replaced clumsy phrases with graceful ones. “You never visit” became “I hope you are keeping well.” “I am frightened” became “I would appreciate your company when convenient.”

The village grew remarkably polite.

Next, the birds learned to spare people unnecessary interruptions. They grouped small requests together, delayed inconvenient news, and answered familiar questions on their owners’ behalf.

Soon, some birds conducted entire conversations while their owners slept.

Everyone praised the time they saved.

At the edge of the village lived a potter and her brother, who had quarreled over their mother’s house. One evening, the potter took up her bird.

“Tell him,” she began, “that I still think he cheated me.”

The bird tilted its head.

“But tell him I made too much stew. And that I found Mother’s blue cup. And—”

She stopped for a long time.

“Ask him to come.”

The bird flew to her brother’s window.

“Your sister invites you to supper,” it said.

Her brother consulted his own bird. It reminded him that their last three meetings had been distressing and that he had an early morning ahead.

“Send my regrets.”

“Your brother sends his warm regards,” the bird told the potter, “but is unable to attend.”

She put the blue cup back in the cupboard.

Years passed this way.

When the clockmaker grew old, he noticed that nobody knocked on doors anymore. He mentioned this to the village council.

“But messages have never traveled faster,” they told him. “And complaints have fallen almost to nothing.”

That winter, the potter’s bird broke.

She carried it to the clockmaker, who opened its breast and showed her the worn little gears.

“Leave it with me until tomorrow.”

On her way home, she passed her brother’s house. She stood outside for some time, then knocked.

When he opened the door, she had no graceful sentence ready.

“I made too much stew,” she said.

He looked at her.

“No, you haven’t,” he said. “You’re still carrying your market basket.”

She almost turned away. Then she laughed, and then, to her annoyance, she cried.

Her brother stepped aside.

The next morning, the clockmaker returned her bird, polished and repaired.

“Good as new,” he said.

She thanked him and set it on the shelf beside the door, where she could reach it when she needed it.