Waiting for the Machines to Fall Asleep
Page 35
"But what about me? Our life together? You didn't think it was enough to make you stay?"
"But we fought all the time."
"So what? All couples argue sometimes." He put the cup on the table and rubbed his temples. "Okay, it's true that it wasn't that good towards the end. But all relationships go through ups and downs. I thought we had it under control. I thought we could work it out."
"I gave up."
"We had even agreed to go to couples' therapy."
"I gave up."
"And we had begun to decorate the nursery. You were going to pick out the wallpaper."
"I gave up, I tell you!"
He stood up so quickly that the chair flew to the floor.
"Yes, you gave up! How could you? This wasn't some worthless piece of junk that you just throw away. It was our marriage! We promised to be faithful until death do us part. Did your vows mean nothing?"
She tried to speak, but her words caught in her throat.
"We were just kids," she said finally. "I was only twenty and you were twenty-three. We were too young to be making promises to last for the rest of our lives."
"Maybe you were a child," he sputtered. "But I meant every word of my wows. And then you show up forty years later, as beautiful now as when we were young and you think you can just ..." He took a deep breath and calmed himself. "Yes, you're still young I guess. Isn't that how relativity works?"
"Well yes. Relative to Earth, time slows on the ship when we travel. For me it has only been eight years." She dug into her blouse pocket and pulled out the glasses. "Here, take these. It is loaded with pictures and videos that I took on the planets we visited."
She put the glasses on the table. He stared at them as if though they were a poisonous snake.
"Why would I want to do that?" His eyes bored into her. "Have you any idea how painful it was to hear your reports? To see photos of you along with the rest of the crew? To see films of you from alien planets? Every time, I thought to myself that I should be proud. But I couldn't ..."
He began to cry. Soon his entire body was shaking. She walked around the table and gently put her arms around him. He did not reject her this time. She let him cry.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I never meant to hurt you. But you must understand that I thought we were over." She looked up at the ceiling, trying to speak not just the right words, but the truth. "Every time I came home it was the same thing. You had always arranged absolutely everything. I felt completely superfluous. And then we fought all the time. Finally I couldn't breathe. So I fled."
He buried his wrinkled face in his hands and groaned. Then suddenly he stood up. Unsteady legs bore him toward the door. He flung it open. Light poured into the hall. Against the brilliance he became a black silhouette and for a moment the young man she had once lived with stood in the doorway. Without a word he went down the stairs and disappeared. Unsure, she sat still in his chair. He may need a moment to himself, she thought. Or maybe, I don't have a moment to lose. She got up from the table and hurried after him.
He had sat down on the boulder by the water. It was big enough for both of them. Like so many times before she sat down beside him. They were silent for a couple of minutes, looking at the setting sun over the lake. Small waves drifted slowly toward the shore. Some birds circled over the water at the cape. He was the one who broke the silence.
"Why did you really come here? You must be after something other than to show me images of your travels. I have followed the news reports. I know you are going back to ... Eta Proxima was it?"
"Yes, they want me on the board of the new colony."
"So what is this? A final farewell?"
"The colony ship has limited space and it is important, when starting the colony, to get as wide a genetic variation as possible."
"Yeah, so what?"
"So we're bringing an egg and sperm bank with us."
"And ..."
"We are free to choose the other parent of our children."
He sprang to his feet, his face a scarlet mask of rage.
"Go to hell!"
"I want to have your child. Our child."
He took a step backward, as if to get to safety.
"Over my dead body! You still just don't get it, do you? I wanted to have children with you! I wanted to have a family. But not this way. Never."
"I looked in the registry. We're still married."
"A mere formality. I never sent the papers."
"Why didn't you?"
"I just never got around to it."
She looked at his hand again.
"Then why are you still wearing your ring?"
He fingered the ring, pulled it off and put it back on.
"I don't know," he sighed. "It's hard to let go. I thought about taking it off, every now and then. Several times I made up my mind to do it. But then came another report on the holo about your adventures on a new world. And there you were." He shrugged, all spent, and was silent for a moment. Then he said in a small voice: "I love you. I have always loved you. I loved you even when I hated you."
"So give me this child."
"Never. You've already taken everything else from me. You will not have my child."
She slept on the couch that night. She thought about entering his bedroom. Her body yearned for him, but she didn't know if he would push her away. So she stayed.
When she awoke the sun was high in the sky and the house was empty. She found him on the rock by the water. He was wearing the glasses. Silently, she sat down next to him. After a while, he took off the glasses and laid them gently in his lap.
"A beautiful place, Eta Proxima," he said. "Those forests are quite similar to our own."
"The planet also has rainforests and deserts closer to the equator. But the place we have chosen for the colony has a climate much like northern Europe, with forests, mountains and fjords."
He chewed for a while on a nail. Tried to say something but his voice cracked. She put an arm around him and waited.
"What would you tell our child about me?" he said.
She thought for a moment.
"That you always loved. Even when all hope was lost. That you wanted this child's life, even when you could not be there yourself to see it."
He wept quietly. Tears dripped down onto the tufts of grass on the shore. He sniffled and said:
"Eta Proxima looks like a fine place. A child could be happy there." He looked at her hands. "Where is your ring?"
"Lost. Years ago."
He pulled off his own ring and put it on her finger. It was a little big but not so big that it would fall off. She wasn't sure if she was the one that kissed him, or if he kissed her, but for a moment everything else disappeared. It was one last kiss goodbye.
"The Mirror Talks" – Sara Kopljar
November
I kept looking at the pictures, even though the psychologist said it was time I tried to think of other things. I drew a sharp breath in irritation and in my mind I asked her what other things could ever be more important! I kept that question to myself, and walked out. I decided that she could never understand how empty my life was. Now the only things I had were the pictures. Images I kept flicking through, video snippets of laughter and drawings drawing themselves on the screen. I remembered my child's fingers pushing across it, painting in changing colors and smudging the screen. It was clean now, and the lines forming themselves on it were an echo of my child's movements. The colors seemed duller.
I had been watching the news screen on the train when a notice came up explaining that a company had started selling androids for private use. There was a short text explaining that this was the next big step in android technology, but what my eyes really stayed fixed on was the video. It was just a demonstration video from the company, but it kept rolling in my head long after I stepped off the train. An android had been walking side by side with a real human, and I couldn't tell the difference. It was so lifelike. When I got home I looked up the co
mpany online, and even though I browsed their site quite thoroughly I knew I had already made up my mind when I saw their website. "To meet your deepest desires," the header said. I imagine they had something quite different in mind than a single mother wanting her beloved child back.
January
I had always had these desires. I kept these thoughts to myself, satisfied in knowing that I had them and that they were mine. Satisfied in knowing that they were forbidden, and that no one would know. When I was a child I was afraid that people would find out, afraid that someone would read my mind in class and rat me out. I was afraid of being shunned, even of being put in jail. Mostly I was afraid that my parents wouldn't love me anymore.
When I grew up that didn't matter. I realized no one loved me anyway, because I knew they couldn't read my mind and thus no one ever knew what they supposedly loved. Today I don't have friends, only neighbors, colleagues and acquaintances. I was fifteen when I found out you could watch children being tortured on the internet. I visited sites on the deep web frequently, but I always stayed quiet. I was just an observer.
Then, observing wasn't enough. I found myself longing for the real. I fantasized about using my own hands to force a small body down, cutting it slowly, smashing it up and seeing the panic in its eyes even as it lay perfectly, perfectly still. When my eyes glazed over at my desk at work that was what I was thinking about: Children.
They sold android companions. No questions asked, you paid and they delivered it discreetly to your door. What you did with it was your business – nothing was illegal, except taking it out in public. Their page said nothing about what the androids were actually for, but there were videos of customers with their new androids; customers who seemed to be mostly old and lonely men. One video even showed a man with his android on a leash, smiling happily. That video disturbed me, but I had already made up my mind without even realizing it.
June
The sofas outside the office were modern, but there was dust between the pillows. Something hummed inside my chest as I was sitting there, and sitting still simply wasn't an option. I worried that I had forgot my tablet and I nervously checked my bag. It was there. The man who appeared in the doorway was slightly chubby, smiling softly behind his beard. We shook hands rather stiffly. I didn't really want to touch him. His office was friendlier than the waiting room, but it still gave off a feeling of anonymity that made me uncomfortable. I took out my tablet and placed it on the coffee table between us. I had to lean down and I noticed him peeking at my cleavage, still smiling warmly as I showed him the video of my child.
He started flicking through the pictures, stopping at some and hardly looking at others. He paused for a moment, looking at one of the drawings that grew on the screen. I leaned back in my chair, disgusted by this man who was trying to evaluate whether or not he could make money from my loss. I had offered his company everything I had if I could have my child back, I had such a profound longing to love and be needed.
"You understand," he took a deep breath and made himself comfortable in his chair, "that this isn't what we normally do. We usually create companions from scratch, perhaps inspired by someone but never a precise copy."
I decided to pick at him where I knew he would be uncomfortable. "I've seen the promo videos. You've made children before."
He stopped smiling. "Not as someone's child," was the answer he finally decided on. I stared at him coldly. "We will do our best," he said, and took out a contract.
"So I will have everything I want then," I replied as I scrolled through the contract without really taking it in, "except my money back, it seems." I signed and put his tablet on the table, leaving in silence.
September
The doorbell rang and I knew it was them. Two anonymous looking men carried in the plastic capsule. It looked like a large, blue egg, flat at the bottom so that it would stand upright. I signed with a code I had been given at purchase, they scanned my ID with a satisfactory bleep and then the capsule opened. Inside was the little blond child, stepping out slowly as I beckoned, looking up at me with two scared eyes. It was so beautiful. I never dared take them seriously when they told me I could have my deepest desires. The men took the capsule with them as they left, and the android hid behind me until the door closed. Its head reached just above my waist and the golden curls fluttered a little as it smiled. I asked if it knew its name. It shook its head. "You are my child," I whispered, more to myself than to it, and it took my hand. The hand was warm and slightly sticky, smaller than mine. It felt perfectly real.
I forgot for a moment my child didn't know where to go, and I had to lead it to the room. All the toys were still there, I had cleaned but never put them away or really made the room look tidy. As I watched my child sit down on the floor and grow more and more excited with play I felt a happiness grow in me that hadn't been there for years. I was a mother again. I couldn't tell the difference after a while – if there even was a difference between this child and my lost child. Perhaps I just stopped thinking about it. Having my child back meant so much to me that I could omit the little things that weren't quite right: The shit wasn't really shit; it was just chewed food with water. At night, when I put my child to bed I didn't turn on the night light anymore, but I turned on the wireless charger. My child didn't remember the things it should have, but we looked a lot in photo albums and talked about friends and relatives and things eventually became normal. A new sort of normal.
The only thing that really bothered me was not being able to take it outside. I would have liked to be able to bring it to the park, take it along to the supermarket, have other people see it and acknowledge it as a real child. They definitely wouldn't be able to tell the difference, and it would make the experience so much sweeter for me. Only, someone might recognize it. Someone might ask questions about the hair, if they looked closely. Perhaps it would even say something. It wasn't predictable, but I wanted to take it outside. I wanted to be seen as a mother.
November
I was so scared. Of course I had thought about it before, even almost cherished the fact that my child wouldn't grow old, but lately it had come to gnaw at my mind. My child didn't change. Experiences left no mark on my child, the personality stayed the same and it didn't grow. I thought I would like that, but it frustrated me enormously now. I had tried to make the bond between us grow, but it stayed the same. In my mind I began to doubt that there even was a bond.
Sometimes I got chills up my spine when I looked at it eating. I had started feeding it from a bowl on the floor, like a dog. It sat down with its legs crossed and ate whatever I fed it. By now it hardly ever protested; my child started to learn. I had imagined that I would get some sort of satisfaction from that, but it just made me angry. I think I had started to love it, and I had a hard time leaving it during the days. I started staying home from work with it. We did the housework together, and sometimes I would just watch. A real child would have thought that was strange, would have acted up, but not my child. I started to reprimand it for no reason, punishing it. Once I hit it so hard the skin broke on its forehead, and a sticky liquid came out, brownish, but nothing like blood. That frightened me.
December
I felt so attached to my child by then. I refused to leave it alone. I really believed my child loved me. I still hadn't figured out if it could think, sometimes I looked into its eyes and all I saw was wet circuitry. Other times I still saw my child in there. Then I thought about that brown liquid whenever I looked at its head and I was so scared. I felt like it wasn't real. My love was fake, just like the child. It was driving me insane. Sometimes I would just walk past my own door, too frightened to go in, and when I looked up through the windows I saw it staring at me. It looked sad. I wonder if androids can feel sadness.
I stayed away from home for three days before coming back. The first thing it did when I got in was to hug me and say hi. It called me mum. I'm not a mother anymore. It's in a closet, locked in. I can hear it moaning when
I pass. My child moans for me from the dark, and my love grows. It's been almost two days and I can't hold back any longer.
I took it out and threw it against the wall the first thing I did. Children are surprisingly light, when you get angry. It cried there, and for a while I felt a little sting inside me. Then it looked up and I remembered. A part of me wishes that it was a real child. It would have been so much more satisfactory to kill it then. It scares me that I have such thoughts, but I want to see blood, flesh and real tears when I kill it. I want to see real suffering, created by real love.
I don't think my child feels my abuse. My child loves me anyway. It's like a dog that pines for its owner even though it's starved and forgotten. I find I am taking things to the extreme. Last night I crushed one of its feet completely. It would have been satisfactory, but then I was reminded it's not real. My child can't walk now, my child crawls across the floor after me wherever I go. I don't know if I like that my child still loves me. It's not natural. By now my child should turn away from me.
I keep hurting it. I feel like I'm going insane. I was supposed to love this android; I was supposed to have my child back. I can't control myself any more. I hit it and hurt it and the worst part is, I think I like it.
I can't help but be moved by the way my child loves me. Through everything it loves me. It only has one eye now, but the remaining eye looks at me with such fondness. The more I hurt my child the more my child loves me.
It screams as I hold it down. It screams just like a real child. I feel the little drops of saliva against my skin as it coughs and twists underneath my arms. My elbow digs into its chest, it slips off the ribcage and suddenly all the pressure hits my child in the stomach. It stops screaming and I feel my own tears burning. My child lies perfectly still now. I can see my child's eyes yearning for me, pleading to me, but it's too frightened to make a sound. I am the only thing in my child's world; I am the only person to trust and to love. Here I am, smashing its frail body to bits with a steel pipe I picked up by the docks on my way from work. The dark brown goo splashes across me, but it's not enough to satisfy me. It's just a surface layer right below the skin. Inside my child there is a mash up of bones, plastic flesh and electric wiring, but no blood. There are no organs, no heart. Its eyes still blink at me before I smash the battery. In all my angst and excitement I remember that it is just an android, but in my heart I feel I have killed my own child. I feel content, relaxed and free, for the first time.