Was a little under the weather for a few days, promise I'll be back with more of the story. For your reading pleasure I will give you an old piece of writing I did my... junior year? of high school (so I was about 15). So please pardon the inadequacies of the writing. Perhaps, if enough people are intrigued or into it, I will write some more short stories and post them occasionally. I'm far better with short stories than longer ones. I've a short attention span.

Anywho, here it is, a short story called Robomime

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            The street is dirty and gray as I head for the dark red and foreboding prison to pick up Robo, again. When will he learn that the government just isn’t as lax as it used to be? No one, not even a lowly robot, is supposed to wear “face concealments” or “disguises”. Only terrorists, criminals, or maniacs wear such things, and they are a danger to us. Anyone seen wearing such things is immediately arrested.

            That means no more Halloween. In fact, I doubt anyone even knows what Halloween is anymore, except for maybe me and Robo.

            I lived with my parents, of course, in Lingdabong, and did, until my 20thname-day. Now I live in an apartment complex in The City.  Like other parents, mine put me into school once I turned two. They had much better things to do, the government, the Politics rather, say, than taking care of children. Lingdabong is the center for fruit production in the world. I believe that they are both managers and fairly more secure in Lingdabong than most. I think that is why they got Robo, when I was seven.

He was a newer model then, the latest in Lingdabong’s society. He was able to directly hook up to the internet and print out papers. Of course I still had to write them, but I was able to access information that many other of my classmates could not. When my parents acquired Robo, I ended up spending more time with him than my classmates. They no longer liked me, and I didn’t want to deal with the looks or the accusing stares or the taunting for having something they did not. The more I talked with and worked with Robo, the more of a personality he got. He loved helping me with my homework, and I had to admit I understood the assignments better with his help. It was actually during my 10th year in school that I had to write a report about the 21stcentury culture, and we found some pretty interesting stuff out.

            We found all sorts of pictures of people all over the world, but mostly the dead nation America, wearing the most outrageous and colorful clothing. Buildings weren’t all the same color, or built of the same material. Gardens had bright flowers and everybody was allowed to walk in them. People even had their own gardens. It was amazing! Who would’ve believed that people were allowed to do such things without fear of punishment?

I remember the project well, because I got a 200 failing grade on it, even when it was far better than anyone else’s project. “Too bright and creative” was why, not that they said it right out.

Robo, I think, was quite moved by it though. “Why,” he says, “shouldn’t we be creative or imaginative? Why can’t we dress up and play, like people did in the 21st century? Why does the government refuse to let us create?” Robo was always thinking up unsettling questions that I could never answer. That is why he is a freebot today.

As the years went by, and I graduated from school (all 20 years worth) my parents got tired, or maybe it was frightened, of the questions Robo kept putting in my mind, and the fact that he is/was my only friend. They sold him. Every time he’d been bought, Robo would eventually find himself back on the market. I know of this, and the troubles he had with owners trying to make him more obedient, as we kept in touch. I had promised Robo, when my parents sold him, that once I had gotten enough money I would buy him and then make him free. It was a few years later, after I had moved into The City, that I had enough to buy Robo. I sent in a petition for Robo’s application for citizenship and what felt like a year later, Robo was given it.

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With Robo free we were able to share rent and live in one of the better parts of The City. I’ve been getting into politics, or trying to. It is very hard to get into those circles when you weren’t born into a political family. They have private schools and they all live in a sanctioned part of the city in which no one but Politics or their friends or their robots, very special and very obedient robots (practically computers), are allowed to go.

The Politics and their community are actually the reason why Robo got into jail the first time. He had wanted to see what their part of the city looked like. I mean, we are all citizens, right? and we all have the right to go where we want? Well, Robo proved that wrong. The Politics are apparently more than citizens. Robo told me, after I picked him up from prison that first time, that they have gardens. They have art work, they have colors. They have creativity.

After Robo told me of all of this, I didn’t know how to feel. Here we are, the majority of the world, stuck in a world of grayscale and one percent of the world was living in color and luxury. Not letting us think for ourselves, and squashing any original thought an individual might have. Robo, probably three times as angry as I was, changed his appearance. Dramaticly he painted his gray panneling white and wore an old black jumpsuit with a ragged hat. A mime, he said he was, when I asked.

Robo went to the market forum and preformed. Always explaining, “In many cities, before our government was formed, and there were many nations, people preformed and shared art…” Then he’d go on to explain what HE saw in the Politics’ City. Many people came again and again, beginning to cry out with the injustice of it, demanding of the Politicals to make a change. They wanted to make a change.

During one of Robo’s performances the Politics ordered a raid and arrested all the people in the forum. Many of the people arrested that day were let out after two years in prison, but not Robo. He has been in there now for five years. If anything, I’d say that after Robo had been arrested there has been even fewer colors in The City, and probably back home in Lingdabong too. The citizens are unhappy and there is a simmering tension filtering throughout The City as Robo’s release draws closer.

I see the blood red doors of the prison open, creaking from the rust it has on the hinges. Not many people get committed to prison, and even fewer people get released. I see Robo being rolled out stiff on a carrier and dumped into the middle of the street. His metal joints are rusted and he clatters and red dust flies as he lands on the heavy asphalt. The doors close and Robo lays still.

I go to him, as do the other people who were waiting in the alleys behind me. Robots and citizens side by side stand around us as I pick Robo up. We go to The City gates. We hear the stamp of enforcement people behind us, and we don’t care. We are walking through a continuingly brighter world, each step we take.