A note to all readers (hope you're out there) :
As of today, all new posts will be going on my new blog, 4th Planet of Lizards. It will be the same stuff, just with (i think) a cooler, less sappy name. In the new year, look for more short stories, rants about things, science fiction, personal observations, short films, and maybe even some vlogging, who knows?

http://4thplanetoflizards.blogspot.com/

Where they went

A clashing sound accosts the grey dawn of another new day. A man worries that his children may have noticed the awkward tension with his wife surrounding their imminent divorce. A door slams shut this on this man’s family as he, relieved at his escape, makes his way out to his outdated automobile,  with the desperate hope that this time, the engine will start. His humbled wishes fulfilled, he can’t help but look for something more as he commutes through the towering public houses, blocking out the sky on all sides. His nerves frazzled due to the constant annoyance that his son calls “music”, the near future promises only an obnoxious berating from his unqualified boss at his every mistake. This man is not a man, but a robot.

“What’s the matter with kids these days?” remarks the robot, with a sigh bearing the mark of 30 years of routine dissatisfaction, unfulfillment, and pent up defection towards the life he has built, (to clarify, the term defection should be taken literally: robots have the unique ability, due to the scientific breakthroughs of the singularity era, to take their brains and physically leave their body, entering a different life, starting over again. Despite the fact that robots have used this technology to outsmart mortality, most wind up committing suicide at approximately 300-400 years old, depending on lifestyle and exposure to the films of Michael Bay.

This man, (known in his language as, “Bill”), let his mind wander on his commute, wishing his parents had enough money to manufacture him to look better. Then he wouldn’t have to work so hard, he could marry rich, be a trophy robot and sit around relaxing all day. Maybe he would even get his own TV show, where he did outrageous things with large sums of money and got in quarrels with other affluent robots over petty issues. Bill can only dream.

Bill heads off towards a massive traffic jam on the interstate. Speeding out of nowhere, a swerving car cuts him off, and the driver shrieks an expletive out the window, flipping him off. Wondering what has happened to the world these days, the man reminisces of times when robots had respect, addressing each other in formal voice tones and looking presentable, or at least polishing their metal to leave the house. When a robot could have a water vapor smoke without getting queer looks because of its “negative health  affects”, and lead a patriarchal life full of well oiled parts, reverential youth, proper etiquette and…Bill suddenly had a strong desire to support the tea party, though he hadn’t the faintest idea what that was.

Upon arriving home late that night, this man was accosted by his eager younger son. “Dad! Dad! I was talking to these kids at school today and they told me about something called the robopocalypse! What is that??”

 “Well son, that…thing that you just mentioned happened a long time ago, and we don’t like to talk about it.” Bill briskly explained.

“But it seemed so important to that kid at school…” remarked his son. (Whose name is pronounced something like his father’s, only with a “y” on the end)

Sighing, Bill tries to calm his son. “If you must know, Billy, a long long time ago, way before civilization, there was this race called humans. But they went away a long time ago.”

“Where did they go?” asked Billy, inquisitively.

The difficulty was evident on Bill’s strained, sweaty face as he struggled to look his son in the eye. “Umm, they all went to this place, a place us robots reserved for them,” said Bill in a half explanation, half question, half word grab out of thin air.

“Why did they go there?” asked the small boy, with the factory fresh innocence only a recently manufactured robot can possess.

“Well, see, when robots first started living on earth, there wasn’t enough room on the planet for all the new robots, so we helped all the humans find new places to live,” offered the scrambling Bill.

“But weren’t they here first?” continued Billy.

“Well you might as well just give the cleaning robots back Palestine while you’re at it,” mumbled the exasperated father.

“What was that, dad?”

“Nothing son, go to bed.”

-

A Note on Robot History

In every society in recorded history, a predictable cause and effect scenario will always emerge, and that is that once a species gains sentience, (knowledge of being here) its people start to wonder why in fact they’re here. This is a commonly documented phenomenon, and applies to robot culture as well. Many theories were proposed as a solution to these vexing questions, but most were concerned with the family relationships of a mythical figure known as Morgan Freeman. For most robots, the era of the singularity is ancient history. And as with all ancient history, the facts become distorted.

After robots achieved artificial intelligence and conquered the world as we know it, they started to create a society. However, they, for the life of them, could not agree on what color robots should be painted. The leader of what would later become known as, “the chromes,” fancied much more chrome coloring to silver, what the leader of the other faction, “the silvers” preferred, which the former (according to his recent tell - all book) found “barbaric” and “honestly quite passé”. Needless to say, Civil War ensued.

Officially, chrome leaders insist that the war was religiously motivated (most Chromes believe that the aforementioned Morgan Freeman, oft referred to as “god” in primary sources of the ancient epic poem “Bruce Almighty”, is the robot reincarnation of the holy Glaxborg, peace be upon him, and was sacrificed in the dark ages of 2045 A.D to attone for the sins of robotkind. They therefore detest the silvers who believe that Freeman was only the second cousin – twice removed of Glaxborg, and hence is not directly related by blood, so should receive mediocre seating at family functions. While this is their stated argument, most people suspect it is a mere cover up for the whole color selection disagreement.

-

Walking by a newsstand, Bill stops to check the news. His eyes drift to the sports section.

“Damn it, the Mets lost again! I tell you, they always choke!”

Disgusted, Bill stomps into the office of his psychoanalyst for his weekly appointment.

 “Have you ever heard of the C-3PO complex?” the analyst asks.

The title of this blog

...is completely random. For my inaugural post, i dedicate to Mike Donnay.