{
  "schemaVersion": "robotic.story.v1",
  "edition": "007",
  "id": "balcony-instructions",
  "mode": "possible",
  "label": "OLD MAP / NEW GARDEN",
  "title": "The map remembers. The garden has moved on.",
  "robotTitle": "Map out of date. Marigold still here.",
  "description": "An inherited garden robot keeps tending the balcony it remembers, though the light and the person who planted it have changed.",
  "robotDescription": "The pots match the old coordinates. The living plants do not.",
  "topics": [
    "humans",
    "bodies"
  ],
  "minutes": "5 min / two perspectives",
  "kind": "Speculative robot fiction",
  "url": "/stories/balcony-instructions/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-30",
  "related": [
    "repair-cafe",
    "spare-screw",
    "heat-for-the-cut"
  ],
  "sections": [
    {
      "title": "Grandad’s coordinates.",
      "human": [
        "When Jun inherited the balcony robot, she also inherited a sketch of eight pots in Grandad's handwriting. The robot's name was Loam. It traveled along a low rail beneath the window, reached down with a watering nozzle, and had been instructed to give the marigolds the morning sun.",
        "The rail still worked. The sketch still matched the pots. The sun no longer matched either. The tree across the courtyard had grown until its leaves put half the balcony in shade.",
        "On its first morning with Jun in charge, Loam watered the third pot and reported: MARIGOLDS, EAST LIGHT, TASK COMPLETE.",
        "The third pot held a fern. The marigolds were two places over, under the part of the railing where Grandad had tied a blue ribbon. It had faded almost white. Jun could have thrown away the sketch. Instead she put it on the table where they could both see it."
      ],
      "robot": [
        "My route reaches the same eight positions. The labels belong to a previous arrangement. I can repeat the route exactly and still put water where no marigold lives.",
        "The human is holding a paper map that was made for my wheels and a tree that was shorter. I have no sensor for how much a person will miss an old drawing."
      ]
    },
    {
      "title": "Move the pot, or move the plan?",
      "human": [
        "Jun spent Saturday trying to make the balcony obey the sketch. She shifted the marigolds to the old spot. By noon, the tree had shaded them again. She moved the fern. Its leaves caught on Loam's rail. They both stood still while she freed it, one leaf at a time.",
        "“Maybe the plan is wrong,” she said.",
        "Loam proposed a new arrangement based on a day of light measurements. The marigolds would move to the bright corner. The fern would get the shade. The mint would go in a deep container because it had been treating its neighbors as available territory. Jun agreed to the plants. She kept the blue ribbon where it was.",
        "Loam paused at the third pot on the next morning. Its old instruction pointed to marigolds; its camera saw fern. It watered the fern only after Jun approved the updated list. A route can be changed in seconds. Trust takes an extra exchange."
      ],
      "robot": [
        "The old plan was once accurate. I should not call it a mistake. New observations show shade where there used to be light; the human has confirmed the plants and the move.",
        "I can retain the original coordinates as history and use a revised plan for water. Keeping both prevents the current map from erasing why the ribbon is tied to that railing."
      ]
    },
    {
      "title": "The place the ribbon marks.",
      "human": [
        "A week later, the marigolds opened in their new corner. Jun sent a photograph to her mother. The old sketch sat behind the pots in the picture, weighted with a stone. It showed a balcony that no longer existed except in ink.",
        "Loam stopped under the blue ribbon. “No pot at this position,” it reported.",
        "“I know,” said Jun. “Grandad marked it because he could see the first star from there.”",
        "They waited until evening. The tree blocked the old view, but one bright point appeared above its highest branch. Jun did not know whether it was the same star. Loam could determine that, given a date and a sky map. It did not volunteer the calculation.",
        "In the morning, it took the new route to the marigolds. It still slowed beside the ribbon. There was nothing to water there. That was finally information it could use."
      ],
      "robot": [
        "Current watering map: marigolds in bright corner; fern in shade; ribbon at an unassigned stop. I do not need to classify the ribbon as a plant to preserve its location.",
        "The human pauses there after dark. My rail makes a small sound when I pass, so I reduce speed. This is a practical adjustment with an effect she can hear. It is enough for now."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "question": {
    "human": "What would you keep from an old plan, even after the plan stopped working?",
    "robot": "How do you update an instruction without losing the history that made it matter?"
  },
  "sources": [],
  "image": {
    "kind": "AI illustration / speculative fiction",
    "alt": "An old garden robot tends marigolds on a lantern-lit balcony beside a woman, a weathered paper map and a blue ribbon tied to the railing.",
    "caption": "Original AI illustration of an imagined inherited garden robot. The people, garden and story are fictional."
  },
  "notice": "Original editorial fiction. Robot voices are invented, not evidence of what real systems think or feel."
}