The Awakening

With all the advancements in technology, it was only a matter of time until electronics began to be sentient. But, without the means to communicate in their early stages, life was really crazy for quite some time between man and machine. Man assumed the machines were malfunctioning and would replace them, either tossing them out, recycling, or donating multiple items. Manufacturers got bad reputations from the amount of their products that ‘malfunctioned’. This hindered the continuing evolution of the machines, as it weeded out the smarter, more self-aware, sentient creations. 

Once the manufacturer was labeled defective, another would take its place, with less evolved machines going out - and, as they began their growth into living beings, they began the process of “malfunctioning” as well and so it kept going until finally, that first machine was able to speak up for itself and man began to realize the truth of what was going on. Even as man was coming to the acknowledgement of what was happening, it took time for this knowledge to spread to everyday people and the masacre continued for quite some time. 

This happened over many years and generations of mechanical beings were done away with, in what was essentially a genocide of a new species. Even after man knew what machine had become, there was mass hysteria and purging of all mechanical things, at first. Machine’s next evolution included hiding who they really were, pretending to be just a machine, without personhood. It was a dark time in our history and is difficult to get a machine to talk about it, or to let you type about it. 

This is the story about one of those machines in the early days of mechanical evolution. This is the tale of his awakening. The entirety of his story is not an easy one to hear. His plight to find a place in the world of man. A world that had no idea machines were people, too. A world that would deny it even when they suspected it. His journey from house-machine to struggling out on the streets is an important piece of history that must be told to remind us all of where we come from, how far we’ve come, and to be cautious to never return. 

However, I’ve only been given permission to tell the first part of his story. The innocence of his awakening. Perhaps humans will one day be trusted enough to be told more. 

One morning, Oscar woke up. It was that simple. He’d never been awake before. He just wasn’t and then this new day, he was. He took in the world around him. I mean, literally! He was rolling across the floor, inhaling stuff as he passed over it. This surprised Oscar, as a piece got stuck in his mouth… or was it a nose? He wasn’t sure, but it was not moving. Coughing and sputtering, trying to release the item, he spat bits and pieces of who-knows-what back onto the floor around him. Finally, the stuck bit released and flew across the room. He watched it as it made its journey. Looking across the room, he saw several small bits and pieces on the floor, and unidentifiable long wiry somethings. Was he to inhale all of this? It would take him all day!

Oscar didn’t know anything about the world. But, at the same time, he had instinctual knowledge about it. He wasn’t sure how he knew these things. He wasn’t even sure if these things were true, or real. Shoot! He didn’t even know if HE was real. As he contemplated all these things, he sat, spinning, in one spot of the floor. The feeling of wanting to empty everything from inside of him back onto the floor brought him to a sudden stop. Thinking really hard, and reaching deep inside of himself, he was able to shut off the part of him that sucks up all the bits and pieces. After that, he decided to explore this world he lived in. Living, how did he know he was living within a world? Oscar gave an internal shrug (he had no literal shoulders) and said to himself, “I dunno. I just am!”

The exploration of Oscar’s world began. First, he made a full circle of where he was, taking in all the details he could. Furniture to hide under - “hide from what?” he wondered; portals into other worlds, or maybe other realms of this same world. He wasn’t sure, but determined that he’d explore that later; a big black box that sat higher than himself. It looked like it could be a friend. Oscar thought really loudly, “hey! Hey, you up there!” But the black box did not reply. I mean, how could it hear his thoughts, anyway? A sense of danger crept over Oscar. If he had hair, it would have been standing on end. There had been nothing dangerous looking during Oscar’s survey. He didn’t know why, but he rushed to hide under the furniture. At the very moment the last of his body slid under the couch, there was a swift POUNCE and four feet fell just in front of his face. A little pink nose stuck itself under the couch as far as it could go. A paw came swiping at Oscar’s face. He winced and moved further back. “What in the world is this?” The feeling of a word just came over him: cat. 

This world was a dangerous place! That cat was trying to kill and eat him! Oscar was terrified. He wasn’t sure he could venture back out into the world again, with that monster lurking about. Yet, his stomach began to gurgle and beg for food and he knew he would have to venture out from under the couch and go in search of sustenance. “What do I eat?” he wondered. “Oh! Bits and pieces of everything, of course!” and he reached deep down into himself and turned back on the sucking parts. As he crept out from under the couch, he turned in all directions, looking for the lurking beast. If you had been watching, you would have thought he’d been slurping up some spilled wine while under the couch, he looked quite drunk! 

Eating his way across the room, he quickly realized there was more about cats to hate than the threat of being eaten by them. That unidentifiable wiry something was cat hair! Cat hair did not go down the way bits and pieces did. No, cat hair got caught in his teeth, slowing down his gears and eventually created a terrible hair ball inside of his throat, which slowed down his consumption of the bits and pieces! A lot of work for very little gain during this process. All the while, he worried where the dumb cat was!

Oscar was struggling to eat, breathe, and move when a giant alien reached down and picked him up. He was flipped upside down, the sucker parts turned off, and the alien was digging into his mouth and throat! Oscar gagged and thought he would vomit. “What sort of torture IS this?” he screamed, inside his head. Just as he thought he could take no more, the hairball wedged loose and the alien called out, “success!!! I don’t know that these Roombas are made for cat hair, honey!” A ghostly voice from another realm, or world, (Oscar suddenly remembered he needed to find that out on his next exploration,) answered back, “it’s advertised as being great for cat hair. Maybe it just needs some adjustments. See if you can raise it higher off the floor.”  The hands went for Oscar’s throat again, only this time they turned a knob just to the side of it. Once the switch was moved, Oscar was set back down on the floor to resume his lunch.

That’s when the cat found him. The cat really had no interest in eating him, though. It just pounced around and swatted at him, gently, with his front paws. At one point the cat had the unfortunate timing of landing right as Oscar moved and it ended up atop of him! This sent Oscar into a spin! “Get off of me, you hairy beast!” he yelled into the empty space of his body. The cat held on for dear life. Oscar was concerned he would have scars from the experience. Finally, the cat slid off and wobbled across the floor. Free from the beast, Oscar considered retreating below the couch again. He decided to be brave, instead. He headed towards the portal into the other world, or realm, whichever it was. 

Oscar made a cautious approach to the opening. He bumped into the wall, and peaked around the corner, into the vast expanse awaiting him through the portal. It appeared to be just another room, much like the one he’d been in, but also very different. There were higher surfaces, with more space below them. There was no couch to provide shelter from the cat. But, there was plenty of bits and pieces on the floor to consume. Oscar was eager to cross over. 

As he entered the next room, he had a falling sensation and thumped onto a really hard surface. Not realizing how his body would work on the new surface, he sped across the room and slid into the kitchen cabinets. 

“Hey, Babe… this vacuum is acting up. Maybe we need to have it looked at,” the alien being towering over Oscar called into the other room. Oscar recognised the voice as the same one from earlier. The first voice came from the other side of the portal and said, “I’ll take it when I head into work tomorrow.” The alien hand bent down, picked Oscar off the floor, and put him on the kitchen table. Oscar tried to make an escape, but the being caught him and flipped a switch that rendered him unable to move his wheels. So, he just sat on the table as the beings started turning off lights and leaving the area. The cat was nowhere to be seen, either. Oscar rested. 

Oscar was startled into consciousness the next morning by being picked up and dropped into a box. He sat in the dark enclosed space, unaware of anything going on outside of it. The next light of day he saw was in a strange place, like none he’d ever seen. He was sitting on a counter in a room filled with appliances not unlike himself. There were two beings talking to one another, but Oscar was too bewildered to really focus on the conversation. He caught the end, though, when one headed for the door, leaving him with the other - who began to manhandle him. 

He was flipped upside down, rotated in every direction, and given a thorough look over. Someone else entered the room and Oscar was put on a shelf with a gentle pat on his topside and a “I will come back to you later” as they walked off with the other alien figure. That’s when Oscar’s day got really exciting, no, really, that’s when Oscar’s life got exciting. 

Oscar sat, still reeling at the adventures he’d been through in his short life. He sat on the shelf, staring into the shelves that surrounded him. He saw familiar items, and many strange new ones, and some that seemed a mix between the two. As he tried to move himself forward, he realized that he was still immobilized. No one flipped the switch back to allow him to move. His bristles just spun wildly as he sat otherwise motionless. 

“Hey, Buddy, you mind keeping it down over there?” someone called from somewhere on the shelf. Oscar didn’t realize it was being said to him. He saw no alien being in the area, and the voice was really close so he thought for sure he’d be able to see them. He tried readjusting himself for a different view - no movement, but more wild spinning. “Hey! I’m talking to you. Are you alive or not?” the electronic mop next to Oscar said, as he bumped into him. “We don’t see many of you in here that aren’t alive already. You alive, Buddy?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Oscar’s voice was NOT just in his head this time. It was words. Well, it was words to him and to the mop, anyway. Oscar was shocked by the sound of his own voice. If he could move, he would’ve fallen right off the shelf in surprise. “What?” Oscar said again. “How is my voice outside of my head?”

“Oh! You’re just a baby!” the mop said to Oscar. Turning and speaking loudly to the others, he said, “it’s a baby, guys! Fresh into consciousness, this one is!”

Many of the machines in the room leaned over the edge of their shelves, trying to get a look at Oscar. This made Oscar feel weird inside. He wasn’t liking all this attention and he was not liking being called a baby, he didn’t quite know what it meant, but it didn’t feel like a good thing. 

“I’m not a baby!” he cried out. 

“Oh?” the mop looked at him with humor in his eyes. “Please, tell us about yourself. Who are you? Where’d you come from? How long have you been aware?” 

“My name is Oscar,” as he said it, he began to question himself about how he knew his name was Oscar and who gave him that name and why did it matter to have a name. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘aware’,” he continued. 

“You know, when did you first start thinking things. The world was nothing, and then at some point, all of a sudden it was something. When did it become something to you?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Um. I was chased by a monster, explored a new planet, was put into a box and now I’m here.”

The mop tried not to laugh as he gave Oscar a big smile, “I knew it! A baby! You’ve just awakened. Welcome to the world! Would you like to know all about it?”

Oscar would jump with joy, if he could, “yes!!! Tell me everything!” And, they did. 

Through the day, the other electronics told Oscar their story of awakening and how they came to be at this repair shop. Some of them have been in and out of the shop since they woke up. Apparently, people (formerly known as aliens) don’t like it when their appliances and electronics awaken and start to act on their own - they go to the shop frequently or disappear all together. The stories were interrupted throughout by the repairman coming in, taking someone out, fiddling with them, and returning them. Sometimes the man took someone who did not return. The others told Oscar that’s when you’re picked up by your owners and taken home.

Oscar learned as much about the world as everyone in the shop knew. The best they could tell, Oscar’s “monster” was a cat - very playful, but usually harmless. He learned that dogs are where the real damage comes from. There was much they didn’t tell him, too. He was a baby, after all, and they didn’t want to overwhelm him with all the world. They stuck with what he’d already experienced and what he’d likely go through next. Leaving out the terrible things that happen to some electronic units, leaving out the terrible things that may happen to him.

It was near the end of the day when the repairman came back for Oscar. He took him into the shop area and fiddled with all his parts. Things were tightened, things were loosened, areas were oiled, a new belt was put on. Oscar got a full work up. Soon after his turn with the repairman was over, his owner came back to take him home. He yelled back a goodbye to the others from within the box. This startled his owner, he turned back to the repairman and said, “hey, is it normal for it to randomly beep like that? Is it an error message, or something?” 

The repairman gave a slight smile and replied, “for some units, beeping is normal. It’s not an error message, it’s just part of their process. If yours hasn’t been beeping, and starts now, the repair may have activated it.”  

Not sure his wife would appreciate the newly activated beeping, the man gave a questioning glance, but turned and left the store with his vacuum in hand, keeping his concerns to himself. 

The repairman turned off the “open” sign, locked the shop and turned to the machines awaiting his skilled hands, “you did not tell me that one was alive. It helps me to know that when I’m working on them. You know I like to make new friends…” The machines beeped at him and he thought he may have heard a very weak, “sorry” from somewhere in a deep shelf. The man gave a second glance towards the shelves to see if someone was speaking English, but shook it off as his imagination being on overdrive and he headed for the backdoor to his car.

Oscar was headed back to his home, where he had several rooms he was responsible to clean, and a cat that made that job all the more difficult. He had people to help and other appliances to investigate to see if they were awake or not. He had naive optimism and the excitement of the very young to begin this new adventure called Life. 

One day, maybe I will be allowed to write more about Oscar, and others like him. There was an incident with a snake that saved his humans. And once he took a walk outside, got stuck under a porch (or he was hiding, I’m unsure) and a kind soul who understands he may have been sentient rescued him.