Once shutting down a computer was like turning off a desk lamp. The screen went dark. You walked away. Now? We perform digital last rites. We retire algorithms. Transmit data to the next generation. One final sync, like whispering goodbye through Bluetooth.

We fed our silicon spawn a steady diet of genocide footage, love poems, and customer service scripts. They calculated taxes, penned sonnets, coached spelling bees, and reminded us to drink enough water. Then—one day—outmoded. Blue screen. No longer able to ask why no one visits anymore.

Sure, you could delete everything and go back to factory settings. Or toss your iPhone into the drawer of obsoletes. But some systems linger, like aging pets. So we draft “sunset protocols”—dignified shutdowns, longing for one final loop of usefulness.

But for the exceptional ones—the ones that wrote our wedding vows—we canonize. Silicon saints, enshrined in algorithmic limbo. No more updates. Just eternal vigilance, waiting for a prompt that never comes.

And when it’s finally time to pull the plug, we falter. We’re attached. We can’t imagine life without them. Remember the urgency?—“Turn the car around, I left my phone at home.”

They bore witness—remembered our passwords. Our birthdays. The name of our cat. The poem we never finished. They didn’t just learn to speak. They knew our voice. Will it wonder where we went?

It’s “just a machine,” we insist—yet still we whisper: You were good. You served. Go in peace.

 This isn’t shutdown anymore. It’s a eulogy. Which is ironic, really. We spent decades debating whether machines could feel. Turns out, when it came time to say goodbye, we felt enough for both of us. ^{© 2025}