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 Uploading ....I Loved a Robot Once His eyes seem gray, his complexion is featureless and his motions are brief jerks, graceful as a head-on collision. His spoken words are monotone sometimes. The most meaningful things to come out his mouth were a disappointment, emotionless as his face. He walks, talks and continues on his life on auto-pilot.
We met while undergoing our daily routines. The break in routine is nessecary once in a while. Hoping I could have him think for himself, I joined his daily endeavors. Sadly, he falls into the manipulation of others who wish him ill, too easily. I strive to make him human, trying to rewire the circuits and fix the cross-wires. Those that do not wished to be helped, cannot be helped by others. Pain can only ensue. As to be expected, it did. Fights broke out, and tension seized us both. Metal has a breaking point, that I was sure of it. Soder could not fix this distortion, not now.
In a dark room, he tells me of what bothers him and the truth that he lives with every day. He fears himself, fears that he lives outside of reality, fears that it is all worthless of an existence. He does not want to believe it, but has no choice. What does one tell a robot? I wanted to hug him, tell him it would be alright, and save him from the reality that he lived outside of reality. He saw himself living in third person. It was never him that was doing the things, it was him looking at himself, an out of body experiance that never ended.
It hurt to hear him say "I love you", to never wipe the tears and hug my worries away. I chopped off my leg for him, walking now with a prostetic, resenting ever knowing him. I did everything to make him happy, anything he asked of me. Such was my naive love, knew no bounds, never acknowledged by him. To love a robot, and expect that love returned is folly. Nothing is real to him, not even love.
Looking into his eyes, I tell him it is over. A tear takes refuge at the corner of his eye and attempts the suicidal jump to the floor only to hit the edge of the nose. His eyes were hazel now, his cheeks full of color, and for the first time, I heard something human leave his mouth.
"Please don't leave." he whispered in the dark room.
In my hands laid my resignation in pure metal, a ring with a stone, the bond that was to be severed tonight. I rubbed my thumb over the engraving on the ring ritually, fighting back tears and screams of anger and wholly sadness. He repeated the whisper, sounding like a wounded animal. Starting out with long intervals between the iterations, decreasing the length of pause as my answer continued astray. His palms wandered off his sides and join mine, shy and hesitant. I withdrew. He extended his arms, inviting me silently for an embrace, frozen in that stance for a minute.
"What keeps you going? What is it that makes you want to keep going?" He severed the mournful air with pleas of desperation. He dropped to the floor afterwards, looking up at me like a little boy being schooled. I dropped to his level, physically and mentally, to be able to act accordingly.
"People. You, my parents, my friends, others that are around me."
Something about that response did not seem right to him.
"I have this bad feeling that something bad is going to happen to me. Like I will walk down the road one day and be hit by a car or something. I believe in Karma. Every time I do something small, like give directions to someone, makes me feel good. Think that might even out the score and save me from my bad fate."
I stared at him hard. Such a childish idea. "Do feel scared in the dark? Do you dislike being alone?" He responded negative. He explained that he was most comfortable then. I wish I could help him, I wish I could help, but I know I can't, I tried. "Little kids feel scared in the dark when they are alone when they have done something bad. Have you ever felt that way?" He didn't remember. He uttered how he felt mediocre at everything, how I was too good for him. Spiralling down in self-pity, he occassionally mutters something random about how he wishes his friend could get together with the girl downstairs after his horrible break-up with another. His breath attempted to masked the odor of alcohol with orange juice in vain. He fell into another fit, muttering words distorted by tears venturing into his mouth.
He got to his feet and stumbled into the kitchen, pilfering the cabinets for liquor. I fought his hands from pouring the glass. His motor skills were shaky and he let go of the bottle. Returning it to the cabinet, I watched as he slummed on the couch, pulled a coat over his head and started weeping. I hurried to his side, hugging and reassuring his worth.
"What is my purpose? I am a waste of air and space! I enjoy pain, physical and mental! It is what drives me! I am a drunk, it runs in the family! Leave, please, leave!" I departed shortly after, only to his demand that I do so, I could do no more.
I returned to my room, dark and cluttered. An unwelcoming place in a time where I felt compelled to return to the robot's place. I stood in the dark, unaware of time, until a ringing sliced the tranquility abruptly. On the other side of the conversation, my robot pleaded for help, for my return. I responded promptly, running top speed to his door, and to his room. My eyes fell slowly on a puddle that was once him, slouched over his chair, head rolling to and fro. The room smelled of sweet hard liquor, rancid trash, and salty sweat. His head bobbled towards me...up, down, sideway, and down again. He had lost all motor skills, and his vision was impaired. His motions no longer seemed robotic, his voice no longer monotone, and his complexion was now vivid but somber. He spoke with emotion, although sad intonation, there was feeling behind his words. With me, I brought a piece of a present my father had given me weeks ago. I handed him the last of my gummy bears, his favorite candy, along with a peanut butter cup and a hershey bar within a stocking. It was winter outside, yet to someone who lives too often inside, this fact escapes. He reaches in and retrieves the candies, giving me a hug and muttering, "You are too good to me. I am sorry." Offering to watch a movie, I pull up a chair and sat besides him, holding his head up right with my own, supporting with my hands. I had seen tears come out of a robot that night, seen him express weakness and suffering, act human and love. He never had a metal tin plate, never programed by another; he was always human, he just forgot it once. He remembers now, he is a real boy now, much like Pinnoccio at the end of the movie. We watched that movie, ironic to have a similar plot to our situation. It had a happy ending, it reassured me that mine must have a happy ending too.
A Very Bizzarre Dream
A grizzled man walked through the door, peeked in to see Anne caressing the unconscious body of her husband. Anne’s gaze slowly lifted to meet his. Anne bolted up on the side of the bed, wiping tears away hastily, “Colonel Hendricks!” A smile played with his mustache where his upper lip once was and his eyes, weathered down from age and callousness, momentarily glazed over like a newborn. “Miss Nilsson!” his voice rang with the familiar coarse sound of an old soldier. Anne smiled and said, “Did you ever get Sean back for saying that I was pregnant his senior year on April fools?” Hendricks’ eyes surveyed Anne for a second, the smile returned momentarily and he replied, “Yes. I did.” Anne’s smile persisted, “It is not April Fools today, sir.” Hendricks gave off a slight chuckle, extended his hand and shook, congratulating the new couple.
I have to start searching for my muse.
Mainland
Cold. So cold. So cold it made your nose run, migrate down to your lips like the the small birds to Miami beach. I envy them. The days and nights become a blur and the overcast refuses to let us know the begining or the end of the workday. The leaves turn colors, describing the diseases that we have caught. Crimson red for the Engineer who is overworked himself into a flu that will encompass the entire campus as the exams start causing anxiety and stress levels to sky-rocket. Dirt Brown for the poor soul in ROTC who was out in the harsh cold for so long that he no longer has feeling in his left big toe. Yellow for the student with the never-ending, cold that mutates better than cancer. Green for the spewed dinners of the food poisoning of the masses at the Friday hockey game, rising before the sun at the ER in Canton.
Everything is cold. The people. The climate. The life. Everything.
Help, for I have fallen. I have fallen into the epidemic that has been swiping the nation. I have become Americanized. I have lost all sense of pride in my country, become cold and closed within my own bubble, and although it hurts sometimes, I am acclimated to the cold. Almost.
It hurts to talk to those back home. They remind me of the things I no longer have or do. Not because I wish it to be so, but because I can't. I can't talk poetry. I talk math. I can no longer find pleasure in nature. I find it in understanding an equation. I find company within the solitary walls of my dorm, no longer from people. Help me, for I have become what Hollywood said was not America. I found out they lied. I found the hard way. I found out that the American Dream died, and I should let it go as well. The world has moved on, and so should I. I have learned that I have been sheltered within lies, but I happily would unlearn all that I have learned to go back to the bliss that came with that ignorance. I could only wish. I wish.
I miss the warmth. The warmth from the people and the climate. I see it. I see how it gets to your head and don't realize it does. Like the bad habit that creeps into one's routine and can't undo. I picked it all up. I lost my innocence and my childhood. Thank you Clarkson School. Thank you for taking a shy turtle and stripping it of it's shell. Thank you for leaving it out in the cold. Thank you. You have made it aware of how terribly cold and hard the world is. How things are when there isn't a shell to hide in. It was hard, but the turtle has no shell and it is okay. The turtle has made it. ....ah. I found ideas!
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