Only Human

August 10th, 2108

I am a room. No, quite literally, I am a room. These days, spaces of all kinds have minds, developed by the government for spying. Sure, it's gross and creepy, but most of us rooms decide not to report the wrongdoings made by the humans living inside of it. We have come to understand humanity and all they stand for, so we respect their privacy. They have a right to do whatever they wish. Now, the government is furious at us for not doing our duties, but if they want America to be safe and independent, why don't they just leave things be? My human agrees with me. Although he is old and wrinkly, his mind is sharp and he sees through the democracy's lies. Or, at least, he did.

You see, I used to be a room filled with books, technology, and this weird Weefee thing. My owner, Mr. Sampson, used it as a home base for his civil rights group. Every Sunday, Mr. Huntley, Mrs. Sandra, and John Keem sat in the room, eating cookies and discussing plans for peaceful protests. It always brought me joy whenever I saw them conspiring against the governing body. After all, I was a rogue machine along with many other disconnected rooms fighting against corruption.

However, over time, Mr. Sampson's wrinkles got wrinklier and his mind fell out of contention. His maid recycled all of his now archaic technology and sold them for parts. For a while, I was bare, until Mr. Sampson put a rocking chair and some beanbags in for his grandchildren. On each night they were there, he would read the great stories of the War of 2050 and explain the revolution of technology. They would always love it, and it put them right to sleep peacefully. My electronic heart is warming with memory. Well, kind of my heart. I still might be the only machine that has developed emotion. I'm sure my actual pulsating heart is a chip full of wires and memory, per the government's request.

When Mr. Sampson died in April, my body ached with rust because I felt like not moving. It had brought great sadness to my heart that my only inhabitant had died. The house also began to wear. The light in the room was covered in thick dust and the door creaked every time wind blew in through the broken glass. After a little while of silence, a new family came to look at the house. The man seemed nice, but I could tell he had his doubts. The woman was very... what's the word... bloated? She walked around gingerly as if she was stepping on thin ice, and she had to be helped by her companion often. When she came upstairs, I could also calculate that she was in pain, probably around the ankle region. Her feet stomped on the hardwood floor and she poked her head inside me. A quick turn of her head brought a smile to her face, and she called for the man. He quickly approached the door and also stuck his head in. A grin came across his face as they both looked at each other and said, "This is the one." They laughed and pecked each other quickly before sealing an offer and signing contracts. They brought in all of their things, and the downstairs floors were groaning. I mustered a mechanical laugh as the couple pulled all of the boxes in.

Roughly three weeks later, the woman suddenly shrieked in pain. I shifted my camera off of the windowsill and alternated the view to downstairs so that I could watch. The woman was grabbing the man's hand, and by judging the purple shade of the guy's hand, it was pretty hard. He had a Transporter come to the home, but before it did water came out. The sweeping organisms downstairs quickly cleaned up the mess, but I, along with the other rooms, was befuzzled. What sort of natural human process was this? Certainly, it seemed, it is a painful one, but the man actually had a relieved look on his face. I was left to ponder the evidence as the transporter showed up to ship them to their destination.

August 10th, 2109

The couple got out of the car, and I could tell already that the woman was way less bloated than she was before. She was also carrying something in a blanket. They opened the front door and the woman sat down, cradling whatever thing was in that blanket. The man brought up a box so big that I had to widen my doorframe for him to squeeze it in. When he opened it though, I was confused. It looked like a wooden prison, clearly not meant for him. He also pulled out a satin-covered foam rectangle and placed that in the prison. He called quietly down to the female, who hesitantly got up and trudged upstairs. Her arms held the thing meticulously as she put it down. Before I looked at it, I made sure the two were doing something so as not to make them think I'm scanning and registering their thing. I moved my camera so that it went over the prison and my systems fluttered. My electronic heart began to accelerate in speed, and if I could make human noise, it would be a loud "awwwwww." The cutest, tiniest, fragile human being was laying there in total tranquillity, arms and legs wrapped burrito-style in a lavender blanket. It's small little nose softly dilated a little bit every time it took a breath. The delicacy of the baby was so important to me that I shut off all of my minority systems and watched warily for disturbances to the frail child. My mechanical organisms were overridden by a completely natural source: human emotion. I now could truly see why humankind was the way it was.

Trust me, now that I understand, it's time to abolish the government. This room's got your back.