SAD ROBOT: an autobiography of my unfortunate existence

47. SAD, SAD ROBOT

47. SAD, SAD ROBOT 

There is one place where I may be able to go before resorting to becoming a part of the scrap heap of Robot Village. I may not have completely hit rock bottom quite yet. I am a resilient robot.

Milo has a younger sister, Bethany. I suppose I am lucky that I could recall this information in time to be able to make use of it. It was somewhere in my noggin, floating around in information wasteland.

In my head, I bring up all of the information I have on her, though it remains rather sparse. Weʼve actually gotten on quite well in the past, though our interactions have only been but on a few brief occasions. Milo and her donʼt see much of each other these days, but Milo could also say that for any other human being in existence.

Of the little information about her I do have, there is her home address—the only real piece of information that I need right now. I tell it to the cab driver and he begins to take me to that part of the city, away from the depressing near-comatose crowd of castaways.

What is a group of robots called? Different species have had names dubbed by humans for gatherings of that particular animalia; flock of birds, herd of cattle, pack of wolves, etcetera. But what would you call something like what you see in Robot Village?

Ah, wait I think I have it. A riffraff of robots. Definition of riffraff: disreputable or undesirable people. Or, in our case, people-like beings. A riffraff of robots. Coined by yours truly.

Some twenty-five minutes later, the cab drops me off at the correct address and once again, I take my leave of the yellow car which drives off towards its next paying customer. It is evening now, but the neighborhood seems upper-middle class and should not present any dangers on my ascent from the sidewalk up to the apartment.

The street is surprisingly quiet, no humans even visible, not a vehicle on the street once the taxi has turned off it. I saunter up to the apartment building. I know the correct suite number but I look on the listing beside the door anyway. The name B. Sparks is beside the number two-eleven, just as I anticipate. Pressing the button with my skinny metallic finger, it makes a buzzing sound. There is a display screen beside the list of room numbers and buttons that provides video to anyone answering their buzzer. The screen doesnʼt come on and I press the button again. It remains unanswered.

Bethany does not appear to be present on this particular evening. A bit unfortunate for myself. I should have asked the taxi to wait while I merely made sure that my host was available to receive a guest. But I did not, and now the taxi is long gone while I stand on the front steps and listen to the first few drops of rain spattering on the top of my head.

I turn away from the front door and look around but there is nobody to ask for assistance from. Not that they would take the word of a robot claiming to be a visitor anyway. Something like that might be looked upon as slightly suspicious, even if I do not entirely understand why. Humans are much too over-cautious sometimes. Though I guess they have their reasons as I do mine.

For fear of getting wet—not so much the fear of the water itself, but rather the effects it will have on my metallic structure—I huddle on the front steps to the apartment building, ducking beneath the small overhang above me. Water sprinkles the earth all around me, occasional drops making small specks of visible liquid on my body and face and then running down, leaving behind small trails of residue.

I decide to wait for Bethany to return from wherever it is she has gone off to, hopeful that she will come back here for the night and see me waiting, and that she will invite me inside, even if it is more out of pity rather than any kind of obligation. I purely do not want to spend the night in the rain without any way of drying myself off and causing myself to become a hazard for rust and all of its negative effects on my robotic frame.

Sitting on the concrete steps, I ponder life, the universe, and everything.

I donʼt really ponder those things; it is just a figure of speech. I wait for Bethany to come home, watching the street through the rainfall haze as puddles form along the sidewalks and eventually, a few cars pass, splashing water up in the air, their tires singing. The cars taper off after a while and humans become altogether absent. I keep waiting.

And I wait, and I wait.

The rain falls harder. I can barely see the end of the block. The wind blows rain into my face even though I am beneath the overhang and at first, I continually wipe away the water with my fingers but ultimately, I give up, letting the drops spatter me unconditionally.

It must be a pitiful sight, a sad robot sitting in the rain. Like a lost puppy wandering the streets, you might feel sorry for him momentarily, but then you keep walking and you think ʻAh well, he might make it, or he might not, thatʼs life,ʼ and then before you know it, youʼve already forgotten youʼve seen him. No more than a fleeting thought, a passing whisper, a running ghost.

Is this all there is? Sitting in the rain, waiting. And waiting for what? Waiting for yourself to become relevant again, for someone to justify your existence, to say that you mean something, anything. But whatʼs the point? Why do we always need this justification to say that we are important, we are essential, needed? Why must we always go through life trying to prove ourselves to others when all we should be doing is what makes us happy, regardless of any outside influence? But what makes one ʻhappyʼ? Acceptance, respect, the feeling of being needed? Is it possible to live in a way that is not so reliant on these things but in a way that gives you ultimate freedom to live apart from such trivialities of the human nature?

And me, merely a robot, how do I keep myself from turning to such melancholy thoughts? The last thing anybody needs is a robot suffering an existential crisis.

I read a poem once when Miloʼs gloomy character was putting me in a particularly self-reflective state, and I remember being so moved as never I had thought it possible to be before. If ever I so choose to become a master of the written word, this is the nature of the poetry of which I shall produce. I donʼt know who the author of this piece is, but I feel as if they must be, or must have been, a robot much like myself. Or else a human whose empathy towards the robot kind is above and beyond that which I have ever witnessed. To communicate something between two possibly vastly different beings—this is what I understand to be ʻArtʼ in its highest form.

I recall the poem from memory and speak it aloud:

"Sad robot,

his steely skin is covered 

by centuries of dust, 

once he was a great one,

now heʼs dull and rust. 

An oily tear heʼs crying, 

can you feel the pain 

of the sad, sad robot,

and itʼs driving him insane.

He canʼt turn back time nor history, 

so his life became a misery.

He has to face his destiny, 

nobody cares anymore.

Sad, sad, robot,

heʼs a sad, sad robot, 

he is so alone."

I wait and I wait. And I wait.