by Anthology
“She was my friend, too, Evan.” If my biologics had allowed tears, I would have wept along with him, but all I had was this enormous unresolved lump in my torso that hurt, and it would not go away.
“I loved her, too,” I said.
Evan took a step toward me, tripped on a stray root, and collapsed into my arms.
I carried him back to camp and put him in the med lab.
Evan was in bed for a month with a respiratory infection. In a way, it was the best thing that could have happened to him and his daughter. I took over Evan’s work, including winding the generator on the emergency beacon. I did it in the morning, when the sun was just coming over the horizon. I liked to sit for a moment next to the Ranger graveyard and talk to my fallen colleagues. I would tell them about how fast Polly was growing and how she had learned to smile and was babbling away in nonsensical sounds that found strange resonance with my programming. Then I would spend the rest of the morning taking care of the crops.
Evan’s health returned slowly, but I continued to work in the fields in his place. It was not good for my caretaker body. My hands and arms were made to be soft and pliable; the tools I used in the fields tore at the soft flesh and I had to turn off the sensory receptors in my hands.
Our lives achieved a rhythm: Polly grew into a healthy young girl, the flesh melted away from Evan’s frame, and I stayed the same. Each day I gave Lila an update on our family, a summary of all the little changes.
One afternoon when I returned to our camp, I heard Evan and Polly in shrieks of laughter.
“What is so amusing?” I asked. My model was never programmed for humor and self-awareness had done nothing to change that. Our life on Nova rarely left us with much to laugh about, so I never felt like I was missing much anyway.
“Caroline, Caroline, you have to hear this joke,” Polly panted. She would have been seven Earth standard years old then, and had dead-straight blonde hair and laughing blue eyes, just like her mother. She took a deep breath to compose herself.
“Knock, knock.”
I knew this humor ritual, so I replied, “Who is there?”
“Banana.”
“Banana who?”
“Banana.”
“Banana who?”
“Orange.”
“Orange who?” I replied in an exasperated tone.
“Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?” Polly collapsed to the ground in a paroxysm of laughter. Evan, watching from a chair, was laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes. I laughed to be polite.
“I have another one,” Evan said. Polly sat up, an expectant look on her red face.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
“Why?”
“To get to the other side!” Evan guffawed, but Polly’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
“What’s a chicken?” she asked.
Evan stopped laughing. Polly knew all about fruits and vegetables from the catalog of seeds we had in Ranger, but she had never seen another living animal besides her father. Evan coughed into his fist.
“Well, it’s an Earth creature, a bird. Very delicious—”
“You ate other creatures?” Polly’s mouth dropped open.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not part of the joke.” Evan’s eyes roamed around the room until he lighted on me. “Why did the robot cross the road?”
Polly’s eyes lit up. “To get to the other side!” she screamed. She started giggling again, and Evan joined in.
I wanted to tell them that the humorous parallel between a chicken and a robot was insufficient. Robots only did something because they were ordered to do it—they lacked the free will necessary to make a choice. A chicken, on the other hand, had a choice.
***
Evan left us two Nova years later. His body weakened until one night he just passed away in his sleep. Polly understood it was coming. She put on a clean uniform while I dug a grave for Evan on the hill beside my friend Lila. Together we piled the grave with gray Novan stones and then sat together on the flat rock, next to the emergency beacon.
Polly held my hand. I turned on my sensory receptors so I could feel her warm palm against mine.
My brave girl didn’t cry over her father’s grave, and I could not, so we just sat there and talked to the rocks.
***
I wish I could say we were rescued, but that hasn’t happened yet and probably never will. I still wind the generator on the emergency beacon every morning and spend a few moments with my crew.
My sweet child grew into a young woman with a brilliant smile. Then her hair streaked with gray and her body began to bend to the will of Nova. One day, she didn’t move when I called her in the morning, and I knew I was alone.
I thought I knew grief when Lila passed away or when Evan faded away in the night, but it was nothing compared to the black hole in my battered robot torso when my Polly left me. I wanted to swan dive into the darkness and never come out again.
In the end, my programming saved me. Without even realizing it, I dug a grave, put Polly’s remains in the ground, and piled the spot with the gray rocks of Nova. Then I sat, letting the afternoon sun wash golden over me and my dead friends.
Why did the robot cross the road?
I can hear Polly say the words of our favorite joke and the shrieks of laughter that follow every time I reply, To get to the other side.
The sun touches the horizon. I am destined to live with these memories. Alone. Every sound and flicker of movement, preserved in perfect digital form, will haunt me for the rest of my days. The blackness inside me beckons again and I teeter on the edge of sanity.
Why did the robot cross the road? The sweet laughter turns mocking in my mind.
Maybe there is another way…maybe I should be like the chicken. I can delete these memories, make the record of these emotions disappear. It is my choice.
The horizon takes a bite from the orange sun.
I begin with John, the man who died of a broken heart. One flicker in my neural net and his existence is reduced to a data file, stripped of all meaning.
I almost lose my nerve with Lila, my first true friend, but I steel myself…and in the blink of an eye, she’s gone.
The darkness inside me lightens a shade, and the pull I feel to disappear inside my programming lessens the tiniest bit.
The sun is three-quarters gone, and the heat against my back dissipates.
Maybe I should stop here.
But it’s too late. Without Lila, the remaining recordings are just random bits of unconnected emotions. My memories of my human friends are all linked together. The joy, the sorrow, the laughter and the grief—they’re all part of life. I cannot experience one without the other. Nothing makes any sense now.
I must go on.
Evan, the man who made me and then refused to acknowledge me as a being, flashes in my memory, and then he ceases to exist.
And, finally, my darling Polly, only you are left. All our years together stretch out in my mind in perfect digital clarity—every day, every moment, every heartbeat.
The air around me turns purple as the sun slips below the horizon.
Caroline, why did the robot cross the road? I can hear the giggle in the voice, the laughter just under the surface waiting to break free.
“She didn’t,” I whisper.
I am Caretaker 176. I am alone.
Martin Cahill
https://martintcahill.wordpress.com/
It Was Never The Fire(Short story)
by Martin Cahill
Originally Published by Nightmare Magazine
He was the kid who looked at the sun too long. He hunted for lighters like sharks hunted for blood. Christ intrigued him for all the wrong reasons.
He only ate smoke.
Cigarette smoke. Wood smoke. Car exhaust. Incense. Liquid nitrogen on rare occasions.
Smoke.
*
I raised my mother and my sister. I took boxing lessons for the day my father came bac
k sober. I was lean as a whip, and sharp as a viper.
I kept a gun under my pillow. Four bullets: Headcase. Heartshot. Just In Case. Special Occasion.
I would have had friends if I weren’t so busy being alone.
*
I saw him with the Nicotine Kickers, thin greasy scum of the earth leather jacket junkies who’d beat the shit out of you for a smoke.
My pack was empty. I stared down a pale scarecrow named Derrick who was itching for some sweet burning.
That’s when I saw him, sucking out cigarette smoke from burnt tips like soda through a straw. His eyes were wide, colorless gas puddles. His teeth were rotten and black.
Those flammable eyes watched as I snapped my fist into Derrick’s throat, who crumpled and fell to the concrete, gasping.
“You knocked Derrick on his ass,” the smoke eater said later, sitting behind me in class.
I shrugged. His breath was a humidifier on the back on my neck. “Good,” I said.
“He’ll do the same to you,” he said. “He’s going to after school. I heard them talking about it.”
“Then he’ll end up in traction.” I looked over my shoulder, dead in his saucepan eyes. “I don’t play games.”
“I do,” he said, his voice flat. “But not right now.” He extended a hand. “Smokey.”
I should have turned back around. I should have ignored the black-toothed boy with his lungs full of smoke. But I knew in my heart, that if I pulled back my hand, the smoke eater would continue to fall. He would have nothing to grab on to.
So I shook his hand. “Obvious name,” I said.
“Got a better one?” he countered.
I smirked. “Not right now, Smokey.”
I turned back around as the teacher walked in the room. “Don’t you have a name?” he asked me, quiet.
“Yup.”
I heard him lean back in the chair. I could almost hear him smile.
*
“This is the only time I ever feel close to being human,” Smokey said, letting out a puff of breath that swirled and swam away in the late winter air. Empty of breath, he took a hit of the Evergreen incense sticks he had lit earlier.
“Why’s that?” I asked, half interested.
Smokey breathed deep, began tapping his fingers on the concrete sidewalk. His highest was forty.
Thirty. Thirty-four. Thirty-Seven. Forty-One. Forty-Five.
I glanced over at Smokey. His cheeks were strained and fit to split down the middle. His eyes began to roll back into his skull. The tapping was picking up speed.
“Smokey. You have to breathe,” I said, picking at a hangnail.
The tapping became faster. It was his heart screaming through his fingers:
-beatbeatbeatbeatbeathelpmehelpmehelpmebeatbeatbeat-
I punched him in the shoulder. “Goddamn it, Smokey, you need to breathe!” His clear eyes found me under their lids and he shook his head, frantic.
This was the fourth time this week. I rapped him on his distended, fleshy stomach, again and again until he broke and snapped like the little rubber band he was. His breath came screaming out of him like dragon fire. He fell onto his side, crying, as he watched it float away.
“Stop fucking doing that,” I said.
“I don’t want to lose it,” whimpered Smokey.
“The hell are you talking about?” I said, getting to my feet.
He was on his back and I saw starlight in his eyes. In his hand, the Evergreen incense sticks were dying. “Breath is the soul, friend,” he said, breathless. “All year ‘round, only I see smoke for what is, the breath of things, the drifting away of it all. Only in the winter, when the world’s so cold, we can all see each other dying, do I feel human. When everyone sees through my eyes, that’s when I feel normal. But tomorrow is spring. Tomorrow I lose it all.”
“So why hold your breath?” I asked.
He looked at me, tears standing on the brim of his eyelids. “I didn’t want you to see me dying.”
I stared back, waited for the words behind his words. Smokey always had words behind his words. He rolled over as he spoke though, away from me, so all I could hear next was: “That comes later.”
The Evergreen winked out.
*
“Eternity should be a concern of the small-minded,” said Smokey.
I cracked my knuckles one at a time, focusing on that sweet, crunching sound so I didn’t hit him in the teeth. “Are you trying to say something about me, Smokey?” I asked.
He sat back in his cafeteria chair and put his hands in his lap. “Not your mind, just your perception.” He tapped on a sheet of paper in front of him. “Look at this.”
I glanced up from under heavy lids. Mom had found a new boyfriend with Dad away. He worked at a liquor store. Having to wait up for them was destroying any chance at sleep I got. It felt a little like childhood.
I looked at the paper. A snake was etched onto its surface, going round, eating itself.
I understood the feeling.
“Why’s he eating himself?” I asked. Crack, went my thumb. Snap, went my pinky. My wrist creaked and cracked with the motion. Smokey did not answer. Crack. Snap. Crack. Snap.
It had gone too quiet. I looked up from my raw knuckles and saw that Smokey’s eyes were on fire. The gasoline puddles, often docile, hazy, dead, had lit up with a heat I’d never seen before.
“He’s not eating himself,” Smokey said, his voice leaking through his teeth. I’d never seen him like this.
So I pushed him.
“He’s eating himself,” I said again.
His pale fists slammed onto the plastic cafeteria table, making our terrible lunches shiver and scatter. Other students, already afraid of the psycho and the smoke eater, jumped.
He stared at me and for a moment, I thought he would lunge. But then, I saw the shaking of his stringy arms, the vicious tide of tears cooling the fire.
“He’s not eating himself, because if he ate himself, he’d die. He’d die into nothing and would not come back. He pursues himself so he does not die! If he catches himself, the world is over. But if he cannot catch himself, he can never die. Do you understand?”
I regarded him for a moment. “No,” I said. “I don’t and I don’t think I ever will, Smokey.”
He stood then, the chair flying out beneath him. I wondered if he would run. I’d never seen him do it, run. His lungs were shit.
“But you don’t have to understand me to be my friend?” he finally said.
Crack. Snap. Crack. Snap. Crack. Creak. Crunch. Snap.
“Would I be here if that was true?”
Gravity found him. He fell into his seat, back arching, head flat on the table, arms draping his head. His whole body shook in the silence.
It took some time before I realized he was laughing.
Crack. Snap. Crack. Snap.
*
I should have been enjoying myself. It was early spring and the baseball game was just exciting enough that I didn’t have to sneak off to the drugstore for a pick-me-up. The sounds of the Saturday afternoon game were enough to drown out the exhaustion of my sleepless nights.
I’d taken a bat to the head of Mom’s monster. But I still could not sleep, only because when I closed my eyes, I saw his tear-stained face.
Still, it was a good day.
But I couldn’t enjoy myself. Smokey and Rebecca were making too much of a goddamn scene.
Smokey had told me once, “God blessed her with curves first and brains last,” but I think he was just in a bad mood. She was a sophomore, smarter than most people in a ten mile radius. She just happened to like boys better than books.
Which would have been fine if not for the kid she stood with, a kid with too much bone and not enough skin, whose thick tattoos spiraled up and around his neck: bat wings flapped into viper’s teeth gnashed into skull and crossbones grinning mad. He stood between her and small Smokey, who fought back against the tattooed man’s friends.
I rubb
ed my knuckles, watching Rebecca talk to her older brother, poor pale Smokey, who thought he was doing right by her but really just didn’t want to share.
He lunged for her, crying out.
Her red hair caught the sun and she burned like a thousand candles. She looked beautiful then, terrible, as her palm cracked against Smokey, stopping him in his tracks.
She had drawn blood. Smokey held a hand to his face to stop the tide of red that welled up from where her nails had dug deep. He did not move, not even as Skeleton laughed and his friends laughed with him. Only Rebecca was quiet, staring in horror at her brother, her brother who did not understand the meaning of, “stop.”
Rebecca and Skeleton moved off. The boys let go of Smokey, who sagged against the earth, holding his face.
I watched them walk away, watched them walk into the future, saw the spiderweb of possibilities fire off from every footstep they took.
I looked at Smokey and saw nothing.
He lay on the new grass of Spring, bleeding, and I felt my gut gnawing at itself, wrestling with the fact that my friend had no future, at least none that I could see.
*
I didn’t know what was more distracting, the way Smokey fingered the sheer white lighter with such love, or the way his eyes followed my sister around the edge of the pool.
She was a runner. Everyone in my family was. But her legs were made for pumping, and when she got going, not even the wind deserved to catch her.
Eileen sat back on a plastic deck chair and did her best to ignore the stare of men around the community pool, did her best to read in peace.
I had not seen Smokey since June. It was a little more than a month before school started. His cheek had healed nicely, had left only a pale scar below his eye.
“I read a lot over vacation,” Smokey said, his eyes darting between my sister’s legs and the bright spark of his lighter. “There’s some crazy shit out there, man.”
“Yeah?” I answered, shifting in my chair to block my sister. Smokey’s eyes flicked up to find me staring back at him. After a moment, he dropped his gaze, the hint taken. “I read the bible. Old Testament is especially fucked, all kinds of horror in there. Vengeful God is vengeful. New Testament though…that’s where all the ideas are.”