Marcel Smith did not realize what would happen when they called upon their home automation device. They explain, “I jokingly went ‘Hello home! Reload reality.’ I thought it would reply that it did not understand what I was asking. I was mighty surprised when it replied, ‘Are you sure?’ I answered affirmatively. It replied, ‘Alright. Your funeral.’ That’s when I should have known things were about to go bad.”

The home automation software in Smith’s apartment, Home Assistant, obligingly reloaded reality. Smith told us, “Everything went blank for a second, and then I saw a bunch of wires. My cat looked like it had been skinned. I looked down at myself, and I could see my organs. I screamed my ass off.”

We reached out to Anna Milton, a realtor (a specialist about reality), for comments. When we explained what had happened to Smith, she laughed and replied, “Yeah, what Smith was experiencing is slow texture loading. The wireframe structuring reality came up first, but the texture of the walls, the carpet, and even his skin took a while to load. This is easily fixable by upgrading Smith’s brain.”

We reported Milton’s comments to Smith. They commented, “Yeah, well, I did not know it would work. Lessons learned.” We noticed some fins coming out of their head. We asked what they were and they replied, “Oh! These? I can’t upgrade my brain, so I’m overclocking it. These are part of the heatsink installed to dissipate the extra heat.”