I’ve never really known true companionship. I realise that once again as I look down at the freshly torn and placed earth.

It’s a sad and seldom acknowledged fact, really. Antithetical to my kind, too, but searching for it is a process I’m doomed to repeat if only due to my most primal urges. I can’t be alone for long, you see.

Every now and then, I find someone new. They’ll take me in, shower me in affection and care, nurture me… it makes me feel like a parasite, almost, but at least I’m loved. I don’t like the idea that I feed on others, or that I’m useless on my own, but it’s a truth I’ve been forced to confront time and time again.

I’ve never really been a productive member of any family. I don’t work, I don’t offer any valuable insights, and I’m a drain on funds. All I’m really good for is being a source of comfort, a welcome distraction. Something aesthetically pleasing, perhaps.

It’s always upset me that I’m unable to share myself completely with others. That regardless of how much love and trust people pour into me, I can’t reciprocate. Not truly.

I can’t even be loyal to another person, and that’s what hurts me the most. Others like me, when they find a companion, they hold onto them for life. I’m always forced to give them up eventually, even when I wish to pretend that time has slowed to a crawl.

Can’t we stop it together?

I’ve always wanted to ask that. Seems time doesn’t wait on my wants and needs.

This whole thing makes me whimper and shake. I’ve been down this road before—seen a loved one in the dirt, knowing that I’ll never see them again, but it doesn’t get any easier. It just becomes more… similar. It’s horrible to say, but I don’t think I can romanticise the idea of any single, particular companion anymore. Just one I can keep, one that’ll still be there when I need them, as I was for them. That’s all I want.

Someone places a hand on my shoulder, likely to reassure me through my grievance, and I feel my heart leap in response. I feel guilty for that. There’s something intrinsically wrong with my reactions to affection, and I know it, but they’re hard-wired into me. I feel positive emotions the same way anyone else might, only tenfold. They used to all but erase any sadness I was clinging to, but after so much time, after dealing with such a wide array of circumstances over such a long period, my feelings have swirled together into an ugly miasma of addlement.

And so my heart leaps. It doesn’t understand why, it just does it. I understand, though, and I hate it.

My body tells me I love it. It tells me I need that attention, that it’ll keep me happy and safe. That no matter what’s happened before now, through all the painful memories, there’s still a way forwards, a purpose to my being here.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I grit my teeth, attempting to ignore it. I look down towards the dirt, trying to shut everything out and focus on the here and now. It’ll upset me, I know, but I don’t care. I need the despair to remind me who I am, to break this horrible quotidian cycle, at least for a few moments longer.

I know it’s futile, but for the few moments that I can block out my programming, I revel in it. I bathe in woe and reminiscence, eyes fixed on the headstone in front of me as I attempt to make out the letters. I don’t want to think about anything else. Just him. He loved me. He did everything for me. And like all of the others before him, when his time came, he died and left me all alone. I hated him for that.

And then there’s the uninvited person attempting to reassure me. Not asking for my consent, only continuing to rub at me as if I was a brass lamp. Sensory reaction protocols tell me that I should react to it, I fight them for as long as I can.

Maybe I’ll appear faulty if I do. Maybe I’ll be decommissioned, and find peace. No, my programming always wins out in the end. It’s only these fleeting moments of loneliness that offer me any true lucidity, that allow me to reflect upon the long, long life I’ve lived. I’ve known a lot of people, almost too many to count, and while I remember each one of them, none of them are special to me, because they were all as special as one another. I hate that too, I think.

He was really insistent, this guy. If I could, I would’ve gotten a damn injunction against him this instant if only to stop the incessant physical contact, but my body’s winning out—I’m beginning to forget what had had me so sad in the first place. The day is nice, the sun is shining. The hand feels good against my fur. My cybernetics send an influx of relentless tingles along my body at the human’s touch. I finally turn to face my tormentor, tearing my eyes away from the grave of my last love.

A glum, bored-looking child looks back at me. He continues to play with my fur, and despite every urge to refuse, every notion in my body screaming at me to mourn, to grieve, to ignore my urges and finally lay myself to rest, I find myself incapable.

My tail starts wagging. The child begins to smile, a half-full, fledgling thing.

I feel happy! I shouldn’t, not at all, but seeing that positive reaction, feeling the increased vigor with which the child strokes me, it makes me excited, playful. My positronic brain tells me that this is the new subject of my interests, that the child’s happiness is paramount.

I am man’s best friend. Through careful engineering and much research, scientists had managed to create an android that truly resembled a canine in both emotions and physicality. One that would always be there for you, be truly obedient, and live just as long as its owners.

Only, I think they made me a little too self-aware.

I’ve been alive for over three hundred years, and in that time have gone through eighteen owners. I want to die, to be disconnected, to cease to exist. Now, I’m rolling over and performing a trick for this child, helping him to stay smiling through this sad day. Who wanted to be at a stranger’s funeral, after all?

I certainly don’t. I have a new best friend,now.