Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore

It’s a scaled-down dreamscape, a bright glittering hyper-city made with scraps of the familiar. There are Gehry-esque curves made from smooth tinfoil. There are Gothic spikes and crenellations made from dry macaroni. There is an Empire State Building made from shards of green glass.

Taped to the wall behind the card tables there are Mat’s photo references: printed-out images of museums, cathedrals, office towers, and row houses. Some are skyline shots, but more are close-ups: zoomed-in photos of surfaces and textures taken by Mat himself. Often he stands and stares at them, rubbing his chin, processing the grit and glint, breaking it down and reassembling it with his own bespoke LEGO set. Mat uses everyday materials so ingeniously that their original provenance fades away and you can only see them as the tiny buildings they’ve become.

On the couch there’s a black plastic radio remote; I pick it up and click one of the knobs. A toy-sized airship dozing near the doorway buzzes to life and scoots toward Matropolis. Its master can maneuver it so it docks at the top of the Empire State Building, but I can only make it bump against the windows.

*   *   *

Just up the hall from Matropolis is my bedroom. There are three rooms here for three roommates. Mine is the smallest, just a little white cube with Edwardian filigree in the ceiling. Mat’s room is the biggest by far, but it’s drafty—it’s up in the attic, at the top of a steep narrow staircase. And the third room, a perfect balance between size and comfort, belongs to our third roommate, Ashley Adams. She’s currently asleep but will not be for long. Ashley rises at precisely six forty-five every morning.

Ashley is beautiful. Probably too beautiful—too shiny and clean-lined, like a 3-D model. Her hair is blond and straight, cropped clean at her shoulders. Her arms are toned from twice-weekly rock-climbing sessions. Her skin is perpetually sun-kissed. Ashley is an account executive at a PR agency, and in that capacity she ran PR for NewBagel, which is how we met. She liked my logo. At first I thought I had a crush on her, but then I realized she’s an android.

I don’t mean that in a bad way! I mean, when we figure them out, androids are going to be totally great, right? Smart and strong and organized and thoughtful. Ashley is all of those things. And she’s our patron: the apartment is hers. She’s been living here for years, and our low rent reflects her long tenure.

I for one welcome our new android overlords.

After I’d been here for about nine months, our then-roommate Vanessa moved to Canada to get an eco-MBA, and it was me who found Mat to replace her. He was a friend of a friend from art school; I’d seen his show at a tiny white-walled gallery, all miniature neighborhoods built inside wine bottles and lightbulbs. When it came to pass that we were looking for a roommate and he was looking for an apartment, I was excited about living side by side with an artist, but I wasn’t sure Ashley would go for it.

Mat came to visit, wearing a snug blue blazer over sharp-creased slacks. We sat in the living room (then dominated by a flat-screen TV, with no tabletop cities even dreamt of) and he told us about his current task at ILM: the design and construction of a bloodthirsty demon with blue-denim skin. It was part of a horror movie set inside an Abercrombie & Fitch.

“I’m learning how to sew,” he explained. Then he pointed to one of Ashley’s cuffs: “Those are really good seams.”

Later, after Mat left, Ashley told me she appreciated his neatness. “So if you think he’ll be a good fit, I’m fine with him,” she said.

This is the key to our harmonious cohabitation: although their objectives are different, Mat and Ashley share a deep appreciation for details. For Mat, it’s a tiny graffiti tag on a tiny subway stop. For Ashley, it’s underwear that matches her twinset.

But the true test came early, with Mat’s first project. It happened in the kitchen.

The kitchen: Ashley’s sanctum sanctorum. I tread lightly in the kitchen; I prepare meals that are easy to clean up, like pasta and Pop-Tarts. I do not use her fancy Microplane or her complicated garlic press. I know how to turn the burners on and off, but not how to activate the oven’s convection chamber, which I suspect requires two keys, like the launch mechanism on a nuclear missile.

Ashley loves the kitchen. She’s a foodie, an epicurean, and she’s never prettier, or more android-perfect, than on weekends, cooking a fragrant risotto in a color-coordinated apron with her hair tied in a blond knot on top of her head.

Mat could have done his first project up in the attic, or in the small scrubby backyard. But no. He chose the kitchen.

This was during my post-NewBagel period of unemployment, so I was there to watch it happen. In fact, I was leaning in close, inspecting Mat’s handiwork, when Ashley appeared. She was just home from work, still dressed in J.Crew carbon and cream. She gasped.