The Bot

ZzZzZzZ a taser churns. Somewhere, a quiet whirring in addition to a small fan powering on and off.

Inside, wood tiles are covered in darkness. It’s the middle of the night. In someone’s home. This whirring gets louder now as a pair of small tracks roll by, resembling those of a military tank’s. Attached to these tracks is the body of one little robot, short, black and white, two eyes like binoculars sticking out of a hose-like neck. It looks around the room.

Someone shouts, “Who goes there?” slurring their words.

The little robot whirs around a corner, peaking out.

The robot spots a man coming into the hall, dressed in blue pajamas. The robot sees his fuzzy slippers and giggles.

The man turns, “Hey!” He sees the robot now. “Stop!” the robot tries whizzing away, but rather clumsily runs into a shelf. It stops to look up, and all it sees is a vase tipping over, a plant coming out, and soil clogging its eyes. The man sets his taser down and picks the bot up.

“In the trash you go.” He walks him through the kitchen, presses his foot on the trash lever, and holds the bot over a filthy pile of garbage. He looks him over, the bot stares him back. For a moment, the man has sympathy for the bot. It is as if he’s had the first connection of his life with an object of his imagination. “It isn’t real” he tells himself. He lets the bot go.

It sinks into the can, landing with a slosh over a clatter of beer bottles and wet food. It looks up and the last thing it sees is the back of the man’s head as its eyes are shut out from the world.

The bot stays there a moment. Alone in the dark. It whines.

“Shut up!” the man slurs out. “I’ll take you down to the compactor tonight.” The bot goes quiet a moment. The man waits, expectant. But not a peep comes from the can. He turns to leave—and it whines.

The man turns on a dime and stomps over to the can, he opens it up. “If I let you out, will you keep that up?” It shakes its head slowly right, then slowly back left. The man nods his head, “Right” and places the bot on the ground.

For a moment it doesn’t move. Covered in trash and dripping with beer. It looks like it’s in shock. “Here.” He bends down and removes a banana peel from its two eyes. It stays there another moment. Then, like a dog, it shakes itself out. Throwing unidentified flying liquids all over the counters and the bot’s savior. “AGH!”

In the man’s bedroom a few minutes later, he lies down a blanket for the bot. The bot just sits and turns its head to watch. The man kicks off his fuzzy bunny slippers, an action which is met by cute giggles from the bot, hops in bed, and pulls the covers over himself. The bot looks down at the blankets and pillow left on the floor.

He whirs onto the flat blanket and grabs the second blanket with his two metal lobster claws and slowly pulls the blanket up and over himself. His arms make an obnoxious whirring as he does, like an escalator. The man shakes his fist at the bot, then turns over to face away. Now the bot continues, but slooooowly pulls the blanket. It makes matters even worse.

The man jumps and yells at the bot. It flips backward and flings the blanket over its head, knocking over a lantern which shatters on the floor. Darkness. The man slams his head into his pillow. The bot pulls his binocular eyes in, looking like a dog caught eating out of the fridge. He whirs over to the man and tries grabbing his hand. The man flings his hand back. “People don’t touch me.” He says.

The bot jumps back, then looks over itself. “Er, or- whatever you are” the man says, “Just go to dormant or rest or whatever you do.” The bot retreats to its blankets.

In the morning, the man gets up and looks around the room. The bot isn’t there. He gets up from his bed and looks under, he looks in the closet, he looks out the window. He searches the entire house and comes back to sit in his bed. Shrugging, he lies back down. He hears a familiar whirring. He looks over—the bot is in the bed with him. “Gahh!” the man jumps back and flips over onto the floor.

At breakfast, the man sits at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal. The bot sits in the chair next to him, looking down at its own bowl. It sees the man using a spoon and hops on the idea. It goes to grab the spoon next to the bowl, and it slowly, VERY delicately grabs it with its claw. Now, holding it over the bowl, it JAMS it in, flipping the bowl and spraying milk everywhere.

The man yells at it. The bot freezes. The man looks on impatiently. Then—the bot’s head slams into the milk on the table, creating a sad splat.

“Hey…” the man says. He holds out a hand and awkwardly touches the bot’s shoulder. He lifts the bot’s head “it’s okay…” but the bot’s eyes are completely off. He jumps up, unsure of what to do. Then he spots a little wire hanging out the back, newly extended. Two lightning bolt icons flash in the bot’s eyes.

In the bedroom, he sets the bot on a photo-filled dresser and plugs him into an outlet. He sits on the bed, cupping his hands and twiddling his thumbs. He paces back and forth. He sits. He paces. Then—the bot whizzes back to life. Its head creaks up and looks at the man. Its hand flaps into the air and rotates slowly left, then slowly right, waving. “Whatever” the man says and steps out.

The bot doesn’t move however, he turns his attention to the photos on the dresser. A little girl in the man’s arms, a woman standing next to him. The bot tilts its head like a dog, curious.

In the living room, the man is sitting on the sofa watching a football game. His legs are kicked up on a coffee table. The bot whirs into the room. “Look, I already made the call. So just buzz off until they get here.” The bot bumps into his legs. “What’s so important?” the man says.

Another bump on his leg. “Don’t you have to charge?” he says, trying to focus on the game. Another bump doesn’t come. He starts to look, when something lands on his lap.

It’s a photo. In it, the man has a woman in his arms and a young girl at his feet. They look happy. The bot is at his feet now, just like that little girl, its binocular eyes curling in. The man looks down at it. He looks again at the photo. Then he frowns. He raises the photo in the air and—a knock at the door.

The bot hears and ducks under the coffee table. The man looks at his wooden front door. The figure of a person visible through its cracks. He looks at the little bot, its pleading eyes peaking out.

He gets up, setting the photo down, and walks to the front door. He opens it. “Lost or stolen robot recovery services. We got a call from here?” “Yes, a lame inconvenience. He’ll be—” the man feels a tug at his pantleg. He looks down to see his little girl standing at his feet, her small hands cupped around a handful of jeans. “Kool-aid” she says with a smile, pointing to a pitcher on a table. The sun shines bright on the green grass surrounding them in their backyard. People around them are having laughable conversations, sipping from clear cups. “Is this the one?”

“Sir?” the recovery worker asks. The cold clouds silhouette the worker. He looks down at his feet. “Is this the one you called about, sir?” The bot is at his feet, its small claw grabbing a part of his pants. It looks up at him, then hugs his leg. “Sir?” “I-- wrong house. Thanks” and he closes the door. He hears the worker outside muttering to himself.

“Is there some spaceship or something I need to take you back to? Can you make my motorcycle fly?” the man asks the bot. Looking out across the room, the bot spots something. An unfinished sandwich on the countertop. It rushes over, picks it up, and a probes comes out of its front. It scans the sandwich up and down.

The bot rolls over to the fridge. It looks up to see it towering over him like a skyscraper. It jumps but can’t reach the handle. The man begrudgingly comes over, humoring the bot, and opens it. The bot turns around, curls its eyes inwards. “Okay-okay” the man says as he grabs out some of the ingredients.

He hoists the bot onto the counter. Watching it go to work, the bot quickly goes through the motions and makes a turkey cheese mayo sandwich. It picks up speed rapidly, producing over a dozen sandwiches. “Well I’ll be damned. Are these for your alien friends?” the man says.

The bot leans off the counter, opens drawer after drawer, before finally finding a slice of paper and a big red marker. It writes something on it, then hops off the counter and starts whirring to the door. The man follows. The bot stops and points to the sandwiches.

Outside, the bot places a sign.

“TURKEY SANDWICH – 3 DOLLAR”

The man laughs. “Whatever you want little dude.”

And so they sell sandwiches.

Each day, the man brings in ingredients, the bot makes a stack of sandwiches, and they sell them on the street.

One stormy afternoon, the two of them are sitting on the man’s couch. A finish to a long day’s sale. The bot watches the man counting cash, he’s somewhere in the hundreds now, a big smile adorns his face.

The bot peers down at its own hands, flapping them. It looks at the man’s cash-filled hands, and its own empty ones. Unexpectedly, it reaches out and grabs the wad of cash from the man.

“What use have you for that?” he asks, “I was almost finished, now—” he shakes his head, snatches the money back, and starts counting from the beginning again. The bot grabs the money again. It looks it over. The man snatches it back, “Steal it one more time” he says. And goes back to counting.

The bot sits flat for a moment. It walks by the man, who doesn’t notice it, and—snatches the wad of cash. It tries to dash, but is abruptly stopped by the man’s boot. It soars across the room. “You make the food, I don’t scrap you. That’s the deal.” The bot is on its back, trying to regain its balance like an upended turtle. The man is on his feet now, walking over to it. “Without me, you have no purpose.”

Lightning strikes as bot pushes hard off a wall and uses the momentum to right itself, then spurs off. The man yells to it, “It’s my house, don’t even try.” He rushes into the kitchen and digs through a drawer. Buried behind old mail, he finds his dusty old taser. He flicks the switch, nothing. He slams it on the table and it zips to life, a haunting ZzZzZzZzZ buzzing in his ears.

The bot rolls down the hall and finds a small closet kept open a crack. It squeezes in, accidentally bumping the door. It creaks. The man’s head snaps in its direction. He marches down the hall, stops right at the closet door, and swings it open. Nothing there but a big teddy bear ominously far from the corner. He slowly reaches—grabs the teddy by the collar, and whips it away. Nothing.

He turns, revealing the bot hanging awkwardly from his belt, and walks down the hall. The bot jumps off and tries rushing down the hall.

The man whips around, “I saw your recipes. I’ll make my own damn sandwiches.” He points the taser and—the power cuts out as he fires.. He drops the dead round and reloads another from his pocket.

The bot flips on its night vision from the far corner, staring at the man in the living room from the safety of the kitchen. He fumbles around, running into his own couch. “I know you’re still here!” The bot ducks behind the counter, peeking out.

“Listen, give me that money, we’ll call it a creative difference.” The bot slowly creeps out, looking up at the towering man. “I just need it for my bills” he continues. The bot crawls closer. “I won’t hurt you.” Lightning strikes and the lights flicker back to life. The man spots the bot and aims the taser at him. “Down.” The bot places the cash on the ground.

Not much of a friendly reunion.

The man zaps the bot, it hurls over and convulses. He leaves and comes back with an open garbage bag, picks up the bot, and scoops him in. “8am tomorrow,” he says, “since you’re so punctual.” Outside, he drags the bot to his street’s end, and tosses him in the green garbage bucket. He dusts himself off, and walks back into the house.

The next day, at 7:58am, the garbage truck starts on his road. It moves fast. At each stop, a young man wearing a pin that reads “PETA” hops off, empties the garbage into the big truck, and hops back on. They stop at the man’s house. The young man grabs the handles of the green bin, as he does without thinking, when he hears a ring. A wildly distinct ringtone.

His look of ceremony turns to discord. He flings open the bin, pulls the bag out, and rips it open. Out comes the bot, covered in gross stale and moldy foods. The young man pulls a phone from his belt, “I found another one, terrible thing. House address…”

The next day, a duo of police pull up to the pristine front lawn of the man’s house. They politely knock on his door, wait for him to open, and promptly put him in cuffs. He rides in the back of the police car alone, with only one thought on his mind. “I should’ve made my own damned sandwiches”