Author's Note
I have always hated my birthday. My mother tells me that even at the tender age of four, my birthday has always caused me great distress. Where does this anxiety come from? Where did it originate? Was I programmed to hate my birthday? Is my programming a glitch, as everyone else seems to enjoy their birthday?
The truth is, it's all irrelevant speculation. But rather than wallow this year, I decided to do something productive, and write about it. Perhaps it is because of my autism, but I have always found it strangely easy to relate to Androids (fictitious though they may be). Therefore, in this story, an Android is confused by the idea of a birthday.
The title of this piece is my attempt to pay homage to the indecently talented Philip K. Dick, and one of his greatest works: a 1968 novel entitled "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
I hope you enjoy.
~ Mar
* * *
Analysis...
Flame.
Hottest point: 1400 degrees Celsius.
Analyzing: temperature and amount of melted wax. Candle (7.62 cm in length) lit for ninety-six seconds. Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight...
Analyzing: pastry topped with icing. Primary ingredients: flour, refined sugar, egg, skim milk, vanilla extract. Calories: 178. Fat: 9 grams.
Analyzing: vitals of approaching organic human...
"It's a cupcake."
Atlas turned her head, taking in the sight of the speaker. He was smiling at her as he walked into the room. He rolled the sleeves of his lab coat to his elbows, and pushed up his ever-present safety goggles, resting them on top of his neatly-cropped coarse black hair.
"I am aware of its designation and term," Atlas told him, her gaze returning to the colorful single-serving dessert that adorned the metal lab table. The flame from the solitary candle continued to blaze. "I am confused regarding its presence here."
"You get a wish," he said cheerfully.
He stopped next to her, bumping his shoulder against hers. She didn't budge. His plastic employee badge swung across his chest on its lanyard, reflecting the light. Glancing at it, she reread the words she'd read hundreds of times before:
Linney, Malcolm
AI Engineer
Essential Personnel
PKD Inc.
"A wish?" she repeated, letting her skepticism be plain.
"Absolutely," Malcolm said. "You make a wish - silently, in your mind. Then you blow out the candle, and the wish will come true."
"That's a fallacy."
He laughed at that. "Of course it is. But it's also a tradition."
"Tradition?" Atlas asked. "What event of significance has occured to warrant the need for a fallacious traditional wish to be made?"
Grinning, Malcolm elevated and dropped his shoulders in a boyish shrug. "It's your birthday."
"My birth-day?" Atlas scoffed. "How can that be?"
"What do you mean?"
"You are already aware of my meaning," Atlas stated. "One cannot have a birth-day if one was not born."
YOU ARE READING
Reboot
Science Fiction"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would...
