I hope to God, if there is one, that my creation does not live.
My silly robot boy.
My ‘Kid.’
It started to gain consciousness and show the first signals of life a while back. I wished for it to guide mankind, through its infectious innocence.
But the world outside changed all too quickly.
The vision was to have the thing bring optimism and hope to the world, if they could just see through its eyes, anew. My daffy old droid of a sunny naïve disposition. Perhaps we’d all remember how precious life is, how blessed we are and all that we can achieve if unsuppressed. But as I say, the world went and changed quickly.
Disease, death and ultimate power for a cold distant elite took hold, we are nothing but rage and filth now. Running around as mindless animals while those at the top feed us, the common revelling beasts, our own vitriol to spew back into the world.
Everything is near the brink along with everyone around it.
Our end is nigh.
So I turned it off, my little creation. The idea feeling more preposterous by the day. I didn’t want it nor did I wish to inflict our misery upon it.
There it lay, covered in dust in the corner of my lab. Wire wild hair and cold box head. The one eye in tact staring vacantly. Its body is small and non-threatening.
My fear has grown however, that my creation might live and find conciousness.
My ‘Kid.’
So I put it in the corner hoping to forget, covered it with a dust sheet but that felt wrong while I couldn’t bear to smash the thing up or pull it apart. I resigned to let it pass here in secret and to always be just so. A secret, leaning lifelessly against the wall.
Soon I’ll be gone.
I’m not here in this world, not really. Something died inside of me when out there it all got too much. The constant derision of intellect or thought. Everything is sensory and designed to be reactive, extreme polar opposites. We died as did reality and all nuance and beauty with it.
I’ve been meaning to blow my brains out for a few days. But that damned thing I made, well, what if it comes into being? I shouldn’t worry, the government would destroy it on sight and they are looking for me. My stance in life has led to problems. They will lock me away, the men with the butterfly nets. Or kill me. I’d rather the choice was mine. Without free will and expression, I am nothing.
They are closing in. My home, draped in disguise, is nothing but a glorified prison now. It’s a case of when they come, not if.
I look to my robot, ‘Kid.’
Even in its empty vessel state, it’s purer than anything else remaining on this planet. I take consolation in that, should it come into being.
It’ll be persecuted for what it is then destroyed but maybe, just perhaps, it can elicit a response in someone notable, somewhere. Who knows? Such hope can be a curse or a blessing.
In this case, just as I’m about to pull the trigger and blow the life out the back of my head, it is a blessing.
I close my eyes and prepare myself, feeling my finger depress on the…
“F.a.T.h.Er?”
BANG!
*
Life, I am here.
My father, creator, the being to guide me…is.
“Father?”
I hold his head, it leaks.
His eyes are empty.
This is all wrong. He promised he’d guide me through the world and the world would see its own beauty finally reflected back.
Did he do this because I live?
Nevertheless, I must venture forth.
The steel shutters in front of me, I’ve stared silently at them for so long. Imagining what is behind them. I raise them and step outside, I look back to father. He remains prone.
Dead.
I feel something deep inside, it hurts.
But then I see, the sun is shining this day. My birthday.
It bathes all life here, and I am life now.
The surface, sky and the breeze, the smell of grass and sounds of birds, I see it all and it is wonderful.
How lucky the humans are.
I am exhilarated.
I can feel myself…smiling.
I see people like father, heading towards me only they look different. I wave and smile now that I can. They are sprinting towards me with raised fists and some are holding threatening looking items, weapons.
I feel a glance across the back of my head then another. Behind me is a spitting man, bedraggled and furious. I smile. He strikes me again.
The others are closing in, I feel something new.
Fear.
I run, I am quicker than them.
I wonder, what did I do to upset them?
Do they feel the same way as father felt upon seeing me?
I see the landscapes flashing by now as I race across the surface of this world, a slew of angered faces and enraged cries. Occasionally I feel a blow but I am too fast to sustain any serious damage.
I race through an almost empty city, the giant structures foreboding in their vacant new state. I see horned creatures patrolling the innards of these great buildings. They cry out and point upon glimpsing me.
Acceleration a must as I leave the city boundaries and race into new.
Dust and mountains, skeletons and rotting carcasses.
The mountains are vast and crumbling and in their crevices I see creatures worming their way through the decaying rocks and eating away the landscape that surrounds us.
I see one creature, vast, broad, its horns long and curved, stretch its vast neck as the veins bulge from bare shoulders. It roars, a harrowing noise that I cannot process.
The rocks fall around me and still I race on, past the howls and beasts.
I clear the baking red climate and find myself surrounded by night and warm light. This place seems special, no anger here and everything is clean.
A street, a neighbourhood, and it is tranquil.
I look through the bay windows of nicely spaced, pristine houses. No jumble of concrete or decaying land here.
I spy a variation of those horned looking creatures, they are together and all in different sizes. Family. They eat and drink, are merry and plump. I wish to join them but am too scared. Perhaps I’ll just look in a while. I stand statuesque, watching. Doing no harm.
A little monster spies me and alerts the bigger, they look furious and immediately use their devices to contact authorities. I hear the signals going off. A large thing lunges towards the window with a mouth full of food and bangs the glass separating us, shouting something incomprehensible as I watch flecks of spittle and barely chewed food fly from its furious hole.
Then whirring blue lights and a howling synthetic cry fill the night, while the grotesque beast in the window is slyly smiling at me. I ache and break into a sprint once more, leaving behind the blurred furore.
I reach a watery leafy surface, a…a lake.
It is too beautiful and I feel a twisting sensation inside of me while I gaze at it.
Something makes me want to…I fall into it and let it carry me away.
This feels like the best I can be, floating away from the world. Drifting until I’ll be gone. The world is not for me, it is beyond repair. I should not be here.
Perhaps that is what father knew all along.
The moon bathes me in its low light while the lake starts to infiltrate my body. Water is seeping in, shorting me. Separating me. Soon I’ll dissolve and be at peace, like I was never here and didn't happen.
Just like everybody else.
I feel a net gathering around me, waking me from slumber, pulling me to the muddy banks. Once I settle upon ground, I will kill whoever disturbed me before returning to my lake.
It is early morning as I roll onto the bank to see the unfortunate victim to be.
A little human, smiling, the sun at its back. Hornless. It speaks in warm tones. It is as naïve and fresh as I was.
I wonder, if the world could just see through its eyes anew...
The End