Lost Time Incident

September 09, 2003

Candy Wants to Forget

Candy wheeled herself into the room where I had been quietly reading. My bookmark stuck out of my mouth and my free hand was entangled in my hair, a perfectly comfortable pose which I could maintain for hours until some biological need took me from my book.

Or, in this case, until the six and a half foot tall robot squeakily wheeled her way into my study.

"Miss-ter Aaron. Miss-ter Aaron."

"Yes, Candy," I replied. Her four tentacles. They wiggled. I didn't know what that means.

"I have a question for you. The question is this: how can a robot named Candy get drunk?"

"You'd like to get drunk?"

The tentacles. Wiggled. Why would anyone decide that robots needed tentacles?

"No. A robot named Candy. This is hypothetical."

"Ah." The robot had been in the apartment when I moved in, immobile. When I asked the landlord about it, he refused to answer. His complexion is dark but the skin around his eyes is darker. And seems kinda moist. So when he stares, he really stares. And when he doesn't talk, the staring becomes a stabbing. I asked about a robot and he stabbed me in the eyes and so I went home and set up my bookshelf.

Then I went to the convenience store, bought some vacuum-packed coffee and a plug-and-roll set of robot wheels. They snapped right on to the robot and she began moving around. The first time she pulled away from the corner and into the light, I saw that someone had painted flowers and the name "Candy" on her side.

There were also four tentacles. They didn't seem to do anything. Except make me uncomfortable.

"Well," I said. "Were a robot to want to be drunk, regardless of that robot's name, I suppose that robot would have to study chemistry."

"Study chemistry," Candy repeated.

"Because the robot would have to figure out how to manipulate the materials used to build it to convert its body from a solid to a liquid."

"Solid to liquid."

"Right. Then, the robot would have to have some way of ensuring that after it had become a liquid, that some other form of life or animatronic creation would then imbibe it."

The four tentacles waggled in sequence. The closest tentacle extended, sliding and flopping down the green front of Candy until it curled among the painted flowers.

"You are joking with me," said Candy. It was not a question. Candy was pretty bright.

"Yes," I said and made a show of readjusting myself in my seat, running a finger down the right page of my book as if refinding my place, and sighing deeply.

"You are purposefully misinterpreting my remark, which was about intoxication, to mean something else entirely."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Candy hadn't left yet.

"Yes," I said. I was only a third of the way into my book. The night was young and I was not yet tired. A second tentacle extended its way down to curl on the wooden floorboards of the apartment.

"Why would you lie to me?"

"Candy," I said, snapping my book shut and looking up at the ceiling. "How long have we been living together?"

"Two weeks, three days."

"That's right. And in all those weeks, you have yet to chip in for rent. So please be quiet while I'm reading. Only people with money have a right to accuse others of maliciously misinterpreting them."

"I would like to be drunk," said Candy.

Her tentacles retracted with an audible thunk as they hit their minimum length. Every time I thought about those tentacles, I thought about them creeping up my legs, tying me to a chair, strangling me, plunging down my throat and tying knots in my intestines. I lock my bedroom door at night. But for some reason, I let Candy stay, despite not knowing what she was designed for.

Candy hissed from somewhere deep in her chest. "I would like to be drunk enough to forget how mean you are to me. And drunk enough to forget that I am in an apartment at the top of a flight of stairs that my wheels can not navigate. And drunk enough to have a sparkling moment of happiness before I slip into a non-active state."

I opened my book again. Candy stood in the doorway and waited. My eyes passed over a few paragraphs, but I wasn't reading. I was waiting for Candy to go away.

"If you have some time tomorrow, Miss-ter Aaron, please see if any of your books contain information about robot intoxication. Or if any of them teach people how to be nice. People are so fragile, they should put more effort into being nice."

She wheeled her way out. I watched her flowered back retreat and let out a deep breath, glad to be alone again. And as she was halfway down the hall, that's when a tentacle slipped back into the room and turned off the lamp.

Posted by Michael at September 09, 2003 09:40 PM