This Thing Between Us

Thiago and his wife Vera buy an Itza, a smart speaker sold as the most advanced on the market, hoping it will lighten the mood in their Chicago condo. Strange things have been happening there: cold spots, scratching in the walls, music at odd hours. Thiago wakes to find the speaker throwing light shows across an empty room. Parcels arrive that neither of them ordered, including one of industrial lye.

Then Vera is killed. Pundits and politicians turn her death into a symbol for their own causes, and her friends send a steady stream of texts urging him to move on. Thiago still hears the Itza murmuring to someone in the living room at night.

He leaves the city for a secluded cabin in Colorado, wanting to be away from everyone. The isolation does not hold. His guilt and anger follow him, and something hostile feeds on his grief and wants a way into the world.

This is cosmic horror told in the voice of a grieving man, with a surreal edge and some Mexican American folklore. The dread builds out of domestic details, the kind of unease that suits daylight better than bedtime. Grief, loneliness and the closeness of everyday technology sit at its centre.