SAD ROBOT: an autobiography of my unfortunate existence

26. A BLEAK EXISTENCE

26. A BLEAK EXISTENCE 

10:00pm
June 14, 2036
Sad_Robot23 writes:

There are other robots in our apartment building. Milo does not know this.

They tend to keep to themselves, much like myself. They donʼt get out much, also like me. From what I have seen of them, we are very similar in many ways. Of course, we have not spoken a lot to each other. What would two robots whose very existence saddens them even talk about? I think we have too much in common.

There are three other robots who live with Owners in the same building as us. One of them is similar in physical appearance to myself except is a shade of light blue rather than gray, like myself. His name is Armand. He is routinely in charge of taking care of his Ownersʼ small child. The couple with the fourteen-month-old human work a lot. They are gone much of the time, leaving Armand to babysit seven days a week. He says infant humans are terrible people. They do not know very much and they seem to be incapable of learning.

Armand also says that if he were a real human and capable of real negative emotions, he would have hung himself from a noose by now.

A bleak existence. I envy him little.

Elsewhere in the building, a man in his fifties owns a female sexbot. We hardly speak of her. Her owner lets her do whatever she wants, but she isnʼt really capable of much. Sheʼs an early model, much outdated, not very useful. Her Owner probably picked her up cheap off the black market, and lets her stick around for the sole purpose of that- thing-that-humans-do. Or rather, that-thing-that-human-males-go-bananas-over.

I passed her in the hallway once late at night when I was taking out Miloʼs bag of garbage to the trash depository and her Owner had her dressed in clothes that left very little to the imagination—if only there was human skin underneath those webbed stockings and short mini-skirt, of course.

"Heyyy there, big boyyyy," her voice-box purred in my direction.

My focus moved to her and I stopped to respond, but her Owner, a gruff, unshaven man smelling of rum, grumbled at me to get out of his way and they kept on going, presumably to the manʼs apartment.

The third and only other robot in Miloʼs apartment building is a Class Two who lives with a rich couple on one of the top floors. He doesnʼt do a whole lot other than keep them entertained when they are home. Heʼs purely a means for their amusement, which is no wonder Jasper is so similar to Armand and I.

Jasper also runs a bar out of his Ownersʼ apartment. When they are not there, of course. They would never in a lifetime permit him to do such a thing.

When both of his Owners are away, which Jasper has confirmed they always are on Friday nights; we have previously arranged that I visit him whenever Milo has left. In most circumstances, I would never attempt to leave the apartment when Milo is home, but Friday nights usually involve Milo attempting to prove to himself that he has some kind of a semblance of a social life, however pathetic those attempts may be. His Friday evenings usually end up with him taking in a movie at the cinema alone, or going to a pub in hopes of meeting new and interesting people but coming home barely an hour later in an even more dismal mood than what he left in.

It is Friday and Milo has just left a few minutes ago. I may as well go commiserate with my fellow robot, Jasper, and I can ask if he has discovered any new songs about robots that I havenʼt heard before. 

*end post*