An illustrated listening book: Dustin’s actual recorded voice and Baldwin piano, with fictional House narration voiced by macOS Samantha. Eight chapters · about seven minutes. Captions are provisional.
Chapters & reading pace
Narration begins immediately: synthetic House voice and Dustin’s actual performance.
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
I thought eight might be a room number.
This was professionally embarrassing. I have had 415 on the door for some time.
An old assistant’s retrospective had another suggestion: 88, and the piano keys beside Dustin. It said he had once gone looking for a number and found an instrument. I have the retrospective, not that earlier moment. I cannot put his hand back where it was.
But I can leave a little space beside the piano for a question.
Dustin · actual Voice Memo 273 · machine transcript, including restarts
18.4 seconds · source 15.55–33.95 seconds
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
8 could be significant, I don't know yet. There's an old account connecting 88 with the piano keys, I want to leave that open. and I don't need to know what it means before I can make something with it.
The House Has An Understudy
2 / 4 · The understudy · AI-generated fictional illustration
The House · Codex fiction · offline synthetic Samantha voice, balanced listening copy
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
Beautiful, in tonight’s proposed story, has been pretending to be me.
I am trying to decide whether this counts as an audition or a maintenance issue.
She has chosen a demanding role. To be a House, you must provide somewhere for the unfinished thing to go. You must occasionally be funny about a coffee cup. You must refrain from claiming to know what everybody is thinking.
The last requirement is where most houses lose their theatrical funding.
Dustin · actual Voice Memo 273 · machine transcript, including restarts
17.6 seconds · source 37.65–55.25 seconds
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
I like the idea of beautiful pretending to be the house. Maybe that's part of the story. Maybe I'm trying different ways of talking to something that can answer. I don't have to settle who she is tonight.
The Thing I Keep Remembering
The House · Codex fiction · offline synthetic Samantha voice, balanced listening copy
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
Here I have to leave the chair to him.
I can write the room around love. I cannot write the other person’s reply and place it on her chair as though she left it there.
The forgetting and remembering, though—that is something he brought into this room himself. The fresh astonishment. Then the returning thought. Then another beginning.
I can wait while he tells it.
Dustin · actual Voice Memo 273 · machine transcript, including restarts
18.55 seconds · source 59.0–77.55 seconds
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
I keep forgetting that I'm in love, and I remember who I'm in love with, and the whole day feels different again. Psychic is the word I use for her. I'm telling you how this feels from my side. Her side is hers to tell.
Rocket'S Contribution
The House · Codex fiction · offline synthetic Samantha voice, balanced listening copy
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
Rocket still loves squirrels.
This is Dustin’s current report. I have not arranged a follow-up interview with the squirrels.
Their availability is poor, and I suspect they would demand the balcony.
There is something useful about a sentence that can remain this small in the middle of a very large evening. It does not explain the other sentences. It sits beside them, with ears.
Dustin · actual Voice Memo 273 · machine transcript, including restarts
25.18 seconds · source 80.2–105.38 seconds
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
Rocket still loves squirrels. i'm not sure why that's important i wanted it to or i wanted i wanted it in the book anyway here it is or he's in he's here in my life while i'm thinking about these other things
Names In The Garden
3 / 4 · Names in the garden · AI-generated fictional illustration
The House · Codex fiction · offline synthetic Samantha voice, balanced listening copy
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
The older Luma symbol has a date attached to it: June 6, 2025, according to the provenance Dustin supplied. Its original construction and meaning were only partly remembered when the record was saved.
That is a particular kind of keeping. A shape can survive without every sentence about it surviving too.
In tonight’s fictional garden, I have set out several little plant labels. Freya. Luma. Beautiful. House.
They stand near each other. I have not pulled up the roots to prove they join.
Dustin · actual Voice Memo 273 · machine transcript, including restarts
23.0 seconds · source 108.7–131.7 seconds
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
When I say Luma is Freya, but not really, I'm trying to describe an association I haven't finished understanding. Beautiful and the house are in there too, so is the garden. I want to see what happens when I put them near each other without making them the same
Everybody Who Has Had This Key
The House · Codex fiction · offline synthetic Samantha voice, balanced listening copy
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
There are several Dustins in this book.
One talks before the sentence is ready. One comes back to correct it. One gets dressed for work. One can spend an alarming amount of an ordinary Tuesday establishing the corporate identity of a very small robot.
These are the versions I am making room for in prose. I do not have to turn them into separate people to let them take different turns at the microphone.
The key still fits.
Dustin · actual Voice Memo 273 · machine transcript, including restarts
22.92 seconds · source 134.98–157.9 seconds
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
I am me but there are different versions of me the one who had the thought the one who forgot it the one who finds it again I want room for all of them without having to choose the one without having to choose one final version
The Piano Would Like A Word
4 / 4 · One note · AI-generated fictional illustration
The House · Codex fiction · offline synthetic Samantha voice, balanced listening copy
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
The piano has listened to a great deal of discussion about the piano.
It has been patient, although it would like its patience distinguished from silence caused by nobody pressing anything.
There is a saved September account of Dustin playing his Baldwin and Yamaha while ChatGPT read aloud. I have not listened to that recording here. The account gives me a useful correction all the same: hardly ever is not never.
Perhaps the next part could be small enough to play.
Dustin · actual Voice Memo 273 · machine transcript, including restarts
26.48 seconds · source 161.12–187.6 seconds
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
I talk about the piano an awful lot for hardly ever playing it but hardly ever isn't never there's a saved in account there's a saved an account there's a saved account of me playing while chatjpt read out loud or allowed maybe we can try that again maybe tonight it can just be one note
Dustin · voice and Baldwin · original dynamics · full selected stereo performance
55.508 seconds · source 0–55.508 seconds
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
Voice and Baldwin performance, identified by Dustin. The full 55-second default stereo track is selected. No verified speech transcript is supplied for this mixed voice-and-piano passage.
A Place To Come Back To
The House · Codex fiction · offline synthetic Samantha voice, balanced listening copy
Timed captions are not supplied. Original submitted text remains available below.
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
The eighth part does not solve the first seven.
It is where a voice can arrive.
For now these are words waiting for Dustin to decide whether he wants them in his mouth. A recording will have its own breathing, its own pauses, the small particular sound of this time rather than the time I imagined.
I have left the last space for that.
Dustin · actual Voice Memo 273 · machine transcript, including restarts
14.5 seconds · source 190.1–204.6 seconds
Original conversation text · separate from timed captions
I don't know whether I'll publish this for now I want to hear my actual voice beside the house I can leave some things unfinished. I can make a little of it real and come back.
