A conventional human can last up to 2 trillion milliseconds—vulnerable, eccentric, and slightly angry the whole time. It is also true that some human edge cases break down early.

Your work as a hospice robot is essential.

To care for your dying human:

1. Wash its face and its body gently. Wash the sheets it sleeps in to improve its experience of them. It may resist, depending on how ashamed it feels. Be ready to assure it of your willingness, your purpose.
2. Prepare easily chewed and digested nutrients for it on a routine schedule. Its teeth may be fragile, and the simplest foods may ruin its digestive health. Still, consider nostalgia. Provide a burger or a curry on occasion.
3. Dispense pain killers and palliatives as needed. Surprise it with a new bamboo shelf for teacups in the kitchen or a novel from its favorite mystery writer.
4. Listen to its fears. There are crimes and new construction projects in the neighborhood. Also, it didn’t expect to last this long or be this weak. What good is it in this state? What good?
5. Wake when it wakes in the night, bones aching, muscles cramping, bladder urgent. Turn on lights for it in the dark house. Sit with it in the kitchen, quiet over a glass of warm milk and a handful of walnuts for melatonin.
6. Let it lean against you on the uneven walk back to the bedroom.
7. As it falls back to restless sleep, forgive it (vigorous life) for wearing out.