Private Morlane. Rooster. Let the regiment sleep. Gun. Trigger. Regiment sleeps.
"I'm in love with a robot."
"What?!"
"I am in love with a robot. I really am. I just realized it."
"I am concerned that you don't know what love is."
"Well - me too, but that's not the point. I am concerned that you don't know what robots are."
"What is a robot? Who is this robot that you "love?"
"A robot is someone who functions on the basis of identifiable algorithms or functions. It is someone who may appear human but is not. You."
Until now she'd never thought of herself as pretty. But now, in the mirror, the morning light slanted in underneath the almost closed blinds, she did.
He lay, still asleep, his hair tussled, blankets twisted around his midsection, one arm under the pillows, another across his eyes.
She walked softly from the mirror, and stood over him. Her thin fingers reached out and caressed his cheek.
He groaned and turned on to his back.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror once more. She felt like Aphrodite, or Helen of Troy. She bent down and pulled something from under...
Excerpt from personal diary, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2010:
Experiments designed to give self artificial sexual fetish involving lamps have thus far resulted in failure. First attempted to insert lamp into arbitrary orifice; however this failed due to how cumbersome the lamp in question was. Perhaps there is a non-penetrative alternative?
Excerpt from personal diary, Saturday, Sept. 24, 2010:
Attempted masturbation while entertaining thoughts of the lamp. So far unable to sexualize the object itself, and thus unable to complete experiment. Will try again with different parameters tomorrow.
Excerpt from personal diary, Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010:
The lamp wouldn't turn on....
"You'll never say it, will you?"
"Say..what?"
"What do you think?" She is exasperated, hands on her hips, eyes looking...sore, maybe.
I can never tell.
I should be able to, by now.
"That? Those words?"
She makes a face, and it's like a bridge collapsing. "Those words. You make it sound like they're...they're... like they're something bad."
I can't even think them, let alone say them. I mean, I do, of course I do, but... No.
"They aren't." I attempt. "And...you already know..."
"Do I?" She's staring now. "I did. I did know, but now...I'm not so certain. I...I just...
"I'm gonna kick your butt!" Heather yelled from the other side of the playground. She dangled on the monkey bars, high enough to break an arm if she fell. Gene's lips curled upward at the thought.
"What? Little prissy Heather is gonna actually do something for once?" This sort of drama wasn't uncommon at Lakewood Elementary School among the fourth- and fifth-graders.
"As a matter of fact, yes." Heather dropped down from the bars and marched across the wood chips to where I stood at the top of the slide. She looked up at me and added, "And I'm gonna...
The girl adjusted the ancient headset irritably. Stupid thing was a poor substitute for her surround sound wireless earbuds, and frankly time was crucial in her quest--she had five minutes to get to the bottom of the mountain or the Ravaging Horde would catch up t0 her and her guild would never forgive her.
They'd given her the manuscript to protect, after all! And it was supposed to be because she'd been an all-star runner in middle school, as if that had anything to do with anything. But her headphones not working was totally an exo.
She tapped the ridiculous...
I lay there, floating. On the outside, at least. On the inside, I walked quietly down a dark hallway towards a bright white light. ,y mother had always told me not to go towards the light. But I was here for a reason. My life had been falling apart for a long time. I couldn't stand it anymore. So I had jumped. As I walked, I felt the water swish around me and I gasped for air. And kept walking. Walking. Walking. The light got nearer and nearer, and I started to reconsider. Was this too final? No. I had...
So, maybe she wasn't what a guy wanted in a girlfriend. She was loud, and rowdy. Always speaking her mind, blunt to a fault.
She didn't know what guys wanted, They just didn't want her.
21 years old and not one date, not even a first kiss. "Failure." She breathed.
"Did you say something, Charlotte?" Her mother asked, she shook her head.
"Nope." She continued to look out the window as her mother drove down the highway.
What was wrong with her, she didn't feel ugly. and she liked her sense of humor, but then why was she so invisible...
He pushed open the thin metal handle on the fingerprint-streaked glass door and the din of the bowling alley got cranked. What the fuck was he doing here? Three or four pieces of jailbait giggled past in a rush and he tried to avoid looking.
Mallory was always late, he thought. Couldn't get ready to go out without at least one girlfriend to help. It was almost pathetic if it wasn't true that she was way, way, way the hell better at being social than he was. Why else would he be at a fucking bowling alley on a Friday...