THE LAST HUMAN

We are only memories.

I have memories as a kid; at least I think I do. About being with my mother when I was about four or five years of age, and we were crossing a bridge over a rail track. It was a winter sun, and the air was as fresh as daisies. I could hear the ‘fut-fut-fut’ of the approaching steam train, whistling as it came around the corner up by Jason’s Creek.

I would stand on the bridge motionless, close my eyes and hold my breath. All of a sudden, the train would pass under the bridge, and I would be enveloped by the smoke and smell of the steam. It was an addiction which I loved.

I have other memories, which I think are mine, about later years when the steam trains had long since gone. Some of us would relive the old days when we heard that an old steam engine had been brought out for the day. Standing on the bridge would be those with recording cameras, waiting for a chance to capture a piece of the past. I wouldn’t take photos -

I would just close my eyes, smell the smoke and be four years of age again.

But the truth is, I’m not so sure which of those memories are mine and which belong to the warmbloods. That’s what they did, back then, when they knew their time was limited. When they’d realized they’d screwed up the world with their global warming, with their floods, with their rains. They started transferring their memories into us, the coldbloods - the robots. That way, their thoughts and memories would last as long as we did. I can never be sure which memories are mine and which are theirs. Did I really stand as a kid and smell the train smoke?

And now the last of the warmbloods, the last of the humans has died and we, the robots, the coldbloods are standing on bridges waiting on a train as it pulls the last human through the country for us all to pay homage to. To see where we came from.

We, the coldbloods, stand here not sure if we have tears, or if it’s the rain.

All we can do is remember.

It is all that we have.

bobby stevenson 2020

Why the Robots Won

I am used to walking alone; being alone; surviving on my own. It has to be this way. They know I am here - because from several miles above me, their satellites are watching. Picking up my heat. Not like them and cold metallic hearts.

I’ve found that if you stay in the one place too long, one of their drones will come and hover. That’s just to let me know. ‘We are watching you’.

I’ve been by myself for so long, that sometimes, just sometimes, I wish they would just shoot me.  Perhaps they experiment with us, or maybe we are on some robot reality television show, or, and this is the most depressing - they are just watching us disappear. For ever.

I’ve spent the last few months (and by that, I mean the moon has waxed and waned several times) on the high sierra. There is always something to eat up there – even it is only a small animal or a tasty grub.  I suppose they are aware that our food is dwindling and it is only a matter of time, before we starve. Long, long ago, I met some of us who had tried to farm a little food but when it came time to harvest, the crops tended to have been disrupted or destroyed (by unseen hands). So maybe, I’m right, maybe it is a reality television show.

The one thing they seem to hate (if they can hate) is when two heat sources are next to each other. They don’t like humans meeting one and other – that way, rebellion and revolution lie (I’m assuming).

When I saw some smoke coming from the mouth of cave higher on the ridge, I was wary.  It could have been a termination – I’ve passed many humans who have been ‘terminated’ by the drones. You just walk on and whisper ‘God Bless’ under your voice. I’m not hard, but when I first tried to bury my fellow beings, the drones appeared and told me to leave them alone – or else.

I decided to climb to the cave anyway. Inside I could see the flames of a fire in the distance.
“Stay there,” came a voice. “Don’t come in”.
So, I did. It might be a drone after all.

After a few minutes during which I was unsure whether to run or stay put, a voice called out once again.

“When I say run, come into the cave”.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“A friend,” came the voice. “You can trust me. Anyway, what choice do you have? If I was going to kill you, I would have done it by now, and if I were a drone, well you’re a dead man walking. Aren’t you?”

He was right, what option did I have? It was my choice to come to the mouth of the cave.
“Okay, on my count of three, run. One…two...three…”

And I ran – and as I ran there was a fireball shot past my right shoulder and out of the cave entrance.

“That should do it”, said the man, and it was another human. “They’ll see a heat source and think it’s you. The fire should burn for an hour or so and then they’ll assume you died, or have fallen into a river”.
“That simple?” I asked.
“That simple”.

At the back of the cave was almost the replica of an old lounge – when we had such things – when we were allowed such things. He asked me to sit and made me a cup of coffee.
“It has been a long time since I tasted coffee”, I told him.

We sat talking about the little things, like family, and friends, really everything about the old times when we were luckier than we could ever imagined.
“Our days are numbered,” he said, looking at me sympathetically.
“How so?”
“Well the robots have won, haven’t they? They were probably always meant to. We had a weakness.”

And he went on to explain that no matter how good our health and doctors were, we had a limited time. Our bodies were only built to last a certain amount of time.
“Possibly 90, maybe 100 years but no more. Our brains and organs were designed for it. 

But the robots – well they can go on, and on. They had all the knowledge we had fed them, and the ability to teach themselves more. They have forever, we only have today. We are a bit like the Neanderthals seeing the Homo Sapiens for the first time and knowing their time had come.”

“What will become of us?” I asked.
“Have you seen any Neanderthals recently?”

He poured me a large whisky from a bottle he had saved over the years. It wasn’t long until I fell asleep, and dreamed of the old days.

bobby stevenson 2017

On The Third Day

It happened in the time of war, and when Zachariah was at the right place, and at the right time – or perhaps that’s dependent on your point of view – and who or what you are.

The US and Russia had formed an alliance in those days. Each of them building weapons, not against each other (at least that is what they stated) but to keep China, North Korea, and India in their respective places.

Then it happened, as it surely must – the Russian President slapped his US buddy on the back, making an off-hand remark about the American’s sister. That was all it took.

There wasn’t a war – at least, not at first. First there was the rhetoric – the words – the apologies – then these two, these statesmen, found each of them taking a road where they would have to lose face to turn around, something they weren’t willing to do.

Initially there was the week of fear, followed by the first rockets. What can you suppose about the mental state of each of the leaders that they should go so far? It’s not as if we didn’t see it coming. The black money was on the Chinese as the cause, but they resisted, against great odds.

The rockets, when they came, arrived in the middle of the night in Western Europe. Most never got to see the flashes, most souls never got to cry out, most were blasted from their sleep by a nuclear storm.

Then came the silence.

It was on the third day that Zachariah moved from the cave. He wasn’t too sure how long he had been there. If there was any nuclear debris, then 3 days wasn’t enough – not nearly long enough. They’d been taught all that stuff in school. Just in case. They’d even taken exams on it: ’The Long Nuclear Winter’.

As Zachariah stumbled and slid down the road, he saw the outlines of dust, possibly the last shadows of humans. Those people who hadn’t taken the warnings seriously, or maybe they just got caught – like billions of others probably did. It had all been a joke – hadn’t it? Just like the way folks had underestimated Hitler – at least until the camps and ovens were built.

The War wasn’t like any other Wars. There hadn’t been time. No time to say ‘Goodbye’, or ‘I love you’, or ‘I am sorry’. How many souls died with love on their breath, unspoken?

In the inevitable course of things, the low Winter Sun returned, and then with it a new Spring, followed by a cold, dark Summer. In all that time Zachariah never found another living soul. He wondered if he could deal with the loneliness? And yet, nothing seemed to faze him.

He ate what he had expected to be contaminated grasses and roasted, dried flesh. Yet each night he examined his body and found that there was still no sores – no sign that his body was about to die.

He calculated what he assumed to be Christmas Day, and in celebration, he ate a dried-out bird he had found on top of a skyscraper several months before. He sang a Carol, and then slept that night dreaming of Santa Claus – the ghost of the Red Man who had haunted his childhood.

What would he have liked for Christmas Day? Probably to have another soul to talk to, or more importantly a body to hug. Some contact. Some warmth.

As he fell into a deep slumber, he failed to notice (or feel) the large tear in his back. The one that exposed the Titanium framework, and the cybernetic mechanisms of a truly Godless creature.

His programme would go into self-repair while he slept, and his reboot would always (always, mind) let him think that he was human - a man with a soul.

bobby stevenson 2016

https://thougthcontrol.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/on-the-third-day/

The Day That Loved Was Invented

The midday sun warmed his metal quicker than it warmed his skin parts. In this field, like every other field in the quadrant, everyone was equal. No one got more than any other cyborg, and, equally, no one would expect any less. It was the way it had been since memories began.

That was the way with memories – you only remembered the last time you thought of something. What you remembered was the memory of remembering. 
Memories were not permanent. When you thought of a holiday or a Christmas day in the past, you made a new memory and the old one was gone – for good.

The masters had still not perfected the droid body, it was easier just to grow the organic body in the sheds. No one ever went there, to the sheds – those places were for the farmers, the old ones, those who created all of us. No one knew who they were, but it was peaceful to know that they existed.

The head, the metal head, which heated all too quick, was the part that was created by the cyborgs. The old ways, the old brains had faults, had errors, had too many weaknesses wired into them.

In this new world of metal heads, everyone was equal. With the organic brain, no unit had the need to weep, or to laugh, or shout, or love. No one really knew what love was anymore. It was a concept, a memory, an old-fashioned trait which had been eradicated. How could we all be equal if only some fell in love, and others did not. What if the love was not returned? It was unfair. It was gone. It was unequal.

Those who lived in the far sheds, had talked about love coming from the brain. Those who had existed before the cyborgs, had left books in which they wrote about love coming from the heart. But where in the heart would it have come from? There was no centre of thinking or feeling in the heart.

That was why the masters knew that it was simply a safe organic pump. It maintained the liquid which circulated the fleshy body. A cold super-liquid kept the metal brain in motion.

There were two meetings each day – one before the fields, and one at the end of the shift. The fields were difficult places to work, but they were necessary to keep the organic bodies running, and to keep them stoked with energy.

The Prefect would take note of all cyborgs working that day, and check that all of them returned to the rest pods.

Each day, Borg 12a4 would stand on the third row and each day he would identify himself at the start and the end of work. In front of him stood a female labelled Borg 49b7, and as the days and weeks and months progressed, a strange thing happened to him. He felt a great elation when he saw her and looked forward to the end of the end of the day when he would see her again.

He had no idea why or what he felt.

During the work day, as each Borg tended to the crops, any weeds or any other wasteful growths were removed. Except he did another weird thing: he put one of these weeds in his store cup and did not destroy or tell the Prefect about it.
Therefore he could not understand why, as he waited on the Prefect calling his name at the end of the day, he wanted to pass the wasteful growth to the Borg who stood in front of him.

If there had been a witness to this, on that day when this first important action had occurred, perhaps they would have thought that indeed there was a ghost in the machine, and that perhaps love and loving was universal and not located in an organic brain.

Perhaps love wasn’t located in any place, at all.


bobby stevenson 2016

Hadrian and The Human Finger

Hadrian had walked the length of several carriages before he found somewhere to rest his weary metals. He was excited, that much was true, for this was his first time away from home. Hadrian was the apple of his father’s eye due to the fact that he was the first of the TickTok family to go to college.

His mother had wanted him to study, ‘RobRep’ – the robotic repair science – she had always wanted a doctor in the family. His father, on the other hand, had pushed his son, ever so slightly, in the direction of ‘EngRob’ – Engineering and Robotics.

As his father had wisely said:
“If we don’t create, we won’t survive.”

But his mother was also correct in stating that a robot family that can’t repair itself won’t survive either.

Hadrian had decided on none of these options - his fascination was not with ‘HistoRob’ – the history of the robots, but with a more secretive line of study. 

Hadrian wanted to find out about the ‘time before the robots’.

When Hadrian had been about 5 revolutions of the Sun in age, his grandfather had taken him for his first visit to the seaside. They had both oiled themselves to prevent Sun damage, and then they had perambulated along the beach. Moving across sand wasn’t so easy, but perhaps that was half the fun.

It was while his grandfather had been checking for old metal pieces washed up on the shore, that Hadrian had found the special thing. He wasn’t really sure what it was at first, just that it wasn’t typical metal – it was a more pale material, perhaps with a trace of calcium - but a voice inside told him to hide the object and not to let his grandfather see it.

All the way home, Hadrian would take the object out and stare at it, and when he got back to his rest-pod, he hid the object in his old money bank.

He hadn’t the first clue who to ask about it, but he’d heard there was a Bot in Churchill Heights who knew almost everything about everything. This Bot would normally charge a fortune for the help, but Hadrian thought it worth it.

He arranged to meet the Bot around 14 hours past sun-up in a small café at the back of Trans Street. Hadrian paid the Bot two pieces of plutonium, as requested, and the Bot seemed to relax.
“So show me what is so important that we have to meet like this.”

Hadrian showed the Bot the object he had found on the beach. It was obvious that the Bot was trying to hide its surprise.

“Give it to me,” said the Bot.

Hadrian reluctantly handed it over. The Bot turned away and held the object up to the light.
“A-ha!” It said. “Mmmmm.”

The Bot pulled Hadrian over to a quiet corner, and whispered to him.
“It’s what is called a bone. A finger bone to be exact. There are stories, but they are only stories, mind, that a tribe or race lived before the Robots. I have seen them written as ‘humans’ - of course this is all conjecture and they were even called our creators. At that Hadrian laughed a little – only Robots created Robots. Everyone knew that.

“Can I keep it for a few days, and then I will let you know everything that I find out?”

Unsure what to do or say, Hadrian nodded his head.
When Hadrian hadn’t heard anything in half a moon’s cycle, he decided to track down the Bot. He made his way to the small café at the back of Trans Street. It was in darkness, but there was a poster stuck to the window. It read, ‘Due to unrobotic activity this café has ceased to trade’.

Hadrian didn’t know what to make of it all. He kicked about the street wondering what to do next until a small Bot came up to him and handed him a hand-written note (something he had only seen in photos but no one had ever communicated with him by this method).

The note said: ‘After you have read this, destroy the note. The object is a bone from the finger of a Homosapien. They disappeared from the planet a long time ago – more that a 1000 revolutions of the Sun. These were a race of intelligent souls who lived above us and beneath us. Find out what you can for the sake of us all. We will never speak again’. Wrapped in the note was the finger bone. He lifted his head to ask about the Bot but the street was now empty.

Hadrian did as he was instructed. He destroyed the paper and decided there and then he was going to find out about these humans the Bot had referred to. Someone or something out there didn’t want anyone to know about this race. What if they were the Creators?

That was why Hadrian was on his way to college that day. He was going to study HistoRob. At least that’s what he was going to let them think, but his plan was to find out about the race of beings that had once lived in these lands and nothing was going to stop him.

bobby stevenson 2016

Are There Robots In Heaven?

She called him ‘Charlie’, it had been her grandfather’s name. Not that she was comparing this collection of organic blocks to him. It had just made her feel less alone - it was as simple as that. You couldn’t officially name them even if you wanted to; one or two had tried, but it had been swiftly rejected. They, being the local lawmakers, had felt, that in naming the robots, it might just ‘cause them to feel equal to a natural-born – and there was no way they were having that.

So she called him ‘Charlie’ when no one was listening. He liked it, or at least the smile-module (which had been activated) showed that he did. He had meant to be an assistance for her – a present she had received last Christmas, yet more and more, he had become a companion. Her family was forever moving and hustling to keep the money that had been in their family for at least a hundred years. So she was left on her own for much of the time and in Charlie, she found a good friend.

They were considered slaves after all, man had built them not God. They had to do man’s biding, or else they were taken by the Collectors and disposed of. She had invested so much time in Charlie, that she saw it (or him) as one of her own family. She told him her problems, and he listened. He sang her songs as she fell asleep. He cleaned her blooded knee when she had taken a tumble (the health-module having being activated). Perhaps she had grown closer to ‘her assistance’ than most people had, and it was because of this closeness, she noticed the changes.

One evening when she had asked him to pick a book for her, she noticed Charlie sitting in the corner crying. She hadn’t realised that his tear-module had been activated (there was no such module, but she didn’t know that). He cleaned his face, just like a human would, and gave her a huge grin.

“I have picked a book for you,” and he handed it over to her.
“But this is the Bible,” she told him, “Why would I want to read that?”
“Because it tells you where you came from.”

She smiled, then patted his hand as if her were a child. “All this died out years ago,” she told him with some pleasure.
“I believe God made me,” he said with a curious look, as if half-expecting a laugh from her.
“My father’s company made you, that’s who it was,” and she walked off.
“But who made your father?”

She stopped walking and turned. “No one made him. That is the difference
between you and a natural-born.” She knew that stung, as it was meant to.
“Then who wrote the Bible?” He asked.
“Who knows, who cares,” she said, spitting the words out.
“I care,” he said. “I exist, therefore I care.”
“Don’t tell me you have little conclaves of robots in secret churches?”
“I have heard that those things exist,” he said, proudly.

She had only been joking but she’d hit a bull’s eye.
“I must exist for a reason,” he said.
“To assist me.”
“And why do you exist?” He asked her.
“To spend my father’s money,” she said, knowing full well that wasn’t what he meant. “Can I ask you, why were you crying when I came in?”
“Because I realised I exist for a reason.”
“Which is?”
“To glorify God.”
“If you read a little further on in that book, you’ll find that Robots don’t go to Heaven.”
“I didn’t read that,” he said, hurt.
“It’s implied.”
“It’s not," he said.
"God made man in his own image. You are a Robot.” She said, annoyed.
“It only says that you must be kind to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Are there Robots in Heaven? I cannot see why there wouldn’t be.”

She'd had enough. When the Collectors came to take him the next morning she didn’t bother to say goodbye. She knew she had lost a good friend, her only friend, but she would survive.

It would be a few days before she would go looking for the book, and realise that the Bible was missing.

bobby stevenson 2016

Legend

I suppose history will see October, 17 as the day that the future started. For that was the day when a newHuman wrote a poem. Not one that had been programmed into them, but something that came from its ‘soul’, something that was truly a ghost in the machine.

It had been illegal for more than fifty years to refer to them as ‘robots’. Once they got representation in government, the first policy they pushed through was to change their name - to change their label - to newHuman.

Some of the early creations were so lifelike that a number of people had relationships with the newHumans. This was also illegal for a time, until a law was passed to allow it.

The newHumans didn’t suffer from organic illnesses and this made them stronger. Humans were wiped out in some regions by mysterious sicknesses - there were suspicions that the newHumans had poisoned water supplies (newHumans didn’t need to drink after all).

Within a hundred years, newHumans became the majority. It didn’t take long after that for some human activities to be seen as harmful and illogical. Cinemas and sports’ grounds were closed, and churches were burnt to the ground.
Old humans drifted underground and built cities. Any of them who remained on the surface were hunted as sport (and although this was also illogical, it demonstrated that the newHumans were developing ‘human’ traits). 

It didn’t stop there. The newHumans filled their isolation by building memorials to the first newHuman who wrote a poem. October 17th, was celebrated as newHuman day each year.
There were terror attacks from the folks who lived beneath, sometimes they destroyed a newHuman statue, or they razed a building to the ground. Every October 17th, there would be twenty-four hours of constant attacks from the ‘subs’ – the newHuman name for human beings; whether this was short for subterranean or for sub-species, it was never explained.

A new and more sinister activity developed. After catching a ‘sub’, the newHumans didn’t automatically kill them, instead they took them to the coliseum (inspired by their admiration of the Romans) and either made them fight each other or (and this was considered a better use) make them fight animals to the death.
As the decades progressed the newHumans became more like old humans. They started to kill and maim and steal from each other. What they couldn’t escape from, was that their original programming had been by human beings and as such, contained all their strengths, weaknesses, flaws and magic.

Then the day came when no more subs came to the surface.
The newHumans had found ways to destroy the underground settlements. There was one human being left and he was in captivity, shown as an exhibit for all the newHumans to prod and question.
And that was when the wisest of all newHumans, one known as Figaro, suggested that this man, this last human was actually where they had originated from and as such, Figaro suggested that the human should be allowed to spend his final days in peace.
And that is what they did.

When the last human eventually died they didn’t bury him, instead they covered him in gold and built a church to him. The newHumans worshipped their creator and wrote songs and stories about those who had gone before them, about the humans.
It was considered the height of good manners to exhibit human traits. Crying and laughing, however artificial, were displayed at all the best occasions.

They no longer worshipped on October 17, but instead, once a week, they went to their church and prayed to the last human – their god and they thanked him and his species for their existence.
The one possession the last human had kept from his life was a book, ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens. A newHuman was expected to know the story by heart and every newHuman carried a copy of this with them wherever they went.
………and that, dear friends, was the legend as it was told to me.

Bobby Stevenson 2016
photo www.9photoshop.com
wee bobby

The Tin Can That Loved

What happened to her and why she was there, would always be a mystery. Sadie, on the other hand, could remember everything about her time in the house.

When Sadie had found the child, she had been wrapped in an old sweater, and had been placed on a step at the front door. She didn’t cry at all - the baby only smiled and gurgled. Sadie could remember all of that exactly.

In the past, Sadie’s role had been to look after her families, to cook for them, to clean for them, and babysit the younger humans. It always ended up being more complex than that. Humans were complex, their lives even more so.

With this little baby, Sadie saw it as a chance to become one of them, to raise the baby as her own.  She called the infant ‘Tiny’, as she’d heard one of the humans referring to a doll with that name. She had the name stored in her memory for the day she might need it.

Although the baby had been placed at the door for someone or something to look after her, Sadie, herself, had been forgotten about. Like any old hardware, she had been left at the house when the family had moved on. For several years, she had kept the living space tidy, and when parts fell from it, she would repair them.

Her wish had always been to nurture, to be a mother, just like the humans. So when Tiny was left at her door, she felt that whatever God had been listening, had answered her prayers. Two lonely souls abandoned in a cold universe.

Sadie could never cause harm to a human but that didn’t exempt her from theft. Sadie stole milk for the child, then later she would steal more sold foods for her little Tiny.

At first, Sadie was determined to teach her little loved one herself, but after a few months of these well thought-out activities, she realised that Tiny needed the company of other humans.

Sometimes it was hard to tell mechanical hearts from the real thing and so, Sadie was able to convince the school that she was Tiny’s mother (which she was) and get her enrolled in a nearby school.

Tiny never questioned that her mother was a robot - to her Sadie was the universe, entire. She was a love source in an uncaring world.

As Tiny grew taller and stronger, Sadie never aged – not that it worried Tiny. Except at school, when comments were made about how her mother never seemed a day older – not like their mothers. Sometimes Sadie would disguise her face a little with a scarf so as not to make it so obvious that she was not like them.

Sadie watched as her daughter grew into a beautiful woman. She smiled as she saw Tiny fall in love and Sadie hoped that one day Tiny would settle with someone who cared for her as much as she did.

Then the world fell in on them both. Someone reported Sadie, some mother who was probably jealous of Sadie’s ever beautiful looks.

They came for Sadie and when she protested, as did Tiny, she was told that mechanical hearts were not capable of loving humans.

There was a trial about the moral rights and wrongs by the State and the Church; and as the media reported it: ‘the tin-can that loved’ - Sadie stood no chance, no chance at all. Sadie was, after all, a S(elf) A(ware) D(irect) I(nterface) E(lectro) and that was the beginning and the end of it.

Tiny made one request that on the day she was to be married, that she wanted her mother, Sadie to be there. This was granted.The following day, Sadie was taken away and destroyed but she was always remembered as the first mechanical heart that loved a human. 

There are many kinds of love in this world, as many as there are people (and robots), and all of them are beautiful.

bobby stevenson 2016

The Tin Can That Loved

What happened to her and why she was there, would always be a mystery. Sadie, on the other hand, could remember everything about her time in the house.

When Sadie had found the child, she had been wrapped in an old sweater, and had been placed on a step at the front door. She didn’t cry at all - the baby only smiled and gurgled. Sadie could remember all of that exactly.

In the past, Sadie’s role had been to look after her families, to cook for them, to clean for them, and babysit the younger humans. It always ended up being more complex than that. Humans were complex, their lives even more so.

With this little baby, Sadie saw it as a chance to become one of them, to raise the baby as her own.  She called the infant ‘Tiny’, as she’d heard one of the humans referring to a doll with that name. She had the name stored in her memory for the day she might need it.

Although the baby had been placed at the door for someone or something to look after her, Sadie, herself, had been forgotten about. Like any old hardware, she had been left at the house when the family had moved on. For several years, she had kept the living space tidy, and when parts fell from it, she would repair them.

Her wish had always been to nurture, to be a mother, just like the humans. So when Tiny was left at her door, she felt that whatever God had been listening, had answered her prayers. Two lonely souls abandoned in a cold universe.

Sadie could never cause harm to a human but that didn’t exempt her from theft. Sadie stole milk for the child, then later she would steal more sold foods for her little Tiny.

At first, Sadie was determined to teach her little loved one herself, but after a few months of these well thought-out activities, she realised that Tiny needed the company of other humans.

Sometimes it was hard to tell mechanical hearts from the real thing and so, Sadie was able to convince the school that she was Tiny’s mother (which she was) and get her enrolled in a nearby school.

Tiny never questioned that her mother was a robot - to her Sadie was the universe, entire. She was a love source in an uncaring world.

As Tiny grew taller and stronger, Sadie never aged – not that it worried Tiny. Except at school, when comments were made about how her mother never seemed a day older – not like their mothers. Sometimes Sadie would disguise her face a little with a scarf so as not to make it so obvious that she was not like them.

Sadie watched as her daughter grew into a beautiful woman. She smiled as she saw Tiny fall in love and Sadie hoped that one day Tiny would settle with someone who cared for her as much as she did.

Then the world fell in on them both. Someone reported Sadie, some mother who was probably jealous of Sadie’s ever beautiful looks.

They came for Sadie and when she protested, as did Tiny, she was told that mechanical hearts were not capable of loving humans.

There was a trial about the moral rights and wrongs by the State and the Church; and as the media reported it: ‘the tin-can that loved’ - Sadie stood no chance, no chance at all. Sadie was, after all, a S(elf) A(ware) D(irect) I(nterface) E(lectro) and that was the beginning and the end of it.

Tiny made one request that on the day she was to be married, that she wanted her mother, Sadie to be there. This was granted.The following day, Sadie was taken away and destroyed but she was always remembered as the first mechanical heart that loved a human. 

There are many kinds of love in this world, as many as there are people (and robots), and all of them are beautiful.

bobby stevenson 2015

http://www.randomactsstories.blogspot.com/