The Robot Story
Mar. 4th, 2013 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThis one is all on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
asakiyume. Last entry I posted a photo of a sculpture of robot hobos and importuned the world to write the robots' story, and she said, "You should write it!
And so: here you go.
The Robot Story
Everybody hates robots. It’s on account of them that we have the Depression: ever since that man Brewster invented them, they’ve taken over most of the old factory jobs and driven just about everyone out of work. “Makin’ themselves workers who don’t need to sleep or eat! Drivin’ real flesh and blood to starvation with their heartless machines!” my uncle Max always shouts, rattling his newspaper whenever there’s another robot story. “The goddamn capitalists – ”
“Don’t use that kind of language in front of Susie,” Mama reminds him.
And then I say, “I wish you’d call me Susannah.” Usually she does, but whenever she wants Uncle Max to talk nicely she forgets, because it’s not much good telling him to think of the children when I’m going on thirteen.
Uncle Max came back to the farm after he got his leg all mangled up in a factory accident up in Chicago – that’s where he got all his socialist ideas. Since then he’s been a fixture and he’s pretty much always around to play checkers or talk books with me, which Mama and Daddy are always too busy to do. The summers’d be just death without him, because we live way out in the middle of nowhere and without him, I’d have no one but the frogs down at the creek to play with.
But that day in late August, even Uncle Max wasn’t on the farm. Mama and Daddy and Max’d all gone off to the country fair, because they all had exhibits in it. As a matter of fact, I did too: my 4-H project that year was hazelnut bread, and just day before yesterday I’d baked up the most beautiful loaf you’d ever seen.
And then I’d gone out to the swing in the backyard to celebrate, even though it was all slippery with rain, and like a fool I fell off and cracked my ankle.
Naturally we couldn’t afford crutches. We couldn’t hardly afford anything: all my dresses were made of old chicken feed sacks, and the town girls made fun of me. So I had to stay home while Mama and Daddy and Uncle Max drove down to the county fair. Even the fact that they’d promised to bring back just about every sweet thing in the whole fair didn’t make me feel much better.
So I was sitting in Daddy’s big old easy chair – a big treat; normally no one but Daddy’s allowed to sit there – eating my delicious hazelnut bread off Mama’s antique blue willow plate, which is her prized possession, and not even enjoying the experience at all on account of tears kept welling up in my eyes.
That’s when I heard the noise out back: this screeching metal noise, like a tractor that hadn’t been oiled in a good long while.
We didn’t have any crutches, but we did have Grandaddy’s old cane, and they left it by my chair in case I needed to use the privy. I set aside Mama’s blue willow plate real carefully, and levered myself up.
I didn’t have the faintest idea what that sound was. You got to understand, we don’t see a lot of robots in our part of the country, on account of if robots came in we’d meet them with pitchforks and crowbars and tear them up to scrap. But it never comes to that: there’s no factories here, and they’re no good at farmwork, so they stay away.
“Hey!” I called. The windows were open, on account of it’s so damn hot (to quote Uncle Max) in August, so for sure if it was a person they could here. “Who’s that trespassing out there? Mama’s always real nice to hobos, and I got a whole loaf of hazelnut bread to share, so if you want something, you ask for it, okay?”
The squeaking sped up. I opened the back door – and there was a robot, lurching away from me as fast as he could. He ran headlong into the clotheslines.
“Hey!” I shouted, and the robot stopped right there, all tangled up in the clotheslines. “Hey you! What’re you doin’ here?”
The robot turned his head, his old pitchfork beard jutting toward me. I figured uneasily that he could probably stab me through with that.
“Please,” he said, and his jaw squeaked as he talked. It made me wince. “We got thrown off the train in the rain last night, and we’re all so stiff.” His chest wasn’t real well put together: you could see the cornfields behind him through the gaps in his tubing, and little flakes of rust kept falling off. “We only need a little oil,” he said. “And then we’ll move on. There are jobs in Pittsburgh…”
“There’s people in Pittsburgh need jobs,” I told him. “Real human people, who can’t work all day and all night like you can, and have to get food to eat and feed their families.”
“I have a family,” the robot pleaded. “We all got soaked last night, and it’s ruining us: we’re afraid our daughter will just lock up…”
“Your daughter?” I shouted. “Did you all rustle together enough scrap to put together a baby robot? No one wants as many of you as there are!”
Greasy tears started in his eyes. They dripped down his nose. I’d never seen a grown man cry before, except Daddy and Uncle Max when Grandma died. I was embarrassed for him, almost, getting so worked up about it; and then embarrassed for me, because of course he’d cry for his daughter. “Well, don’t cry now,” I said, talking real fast. “Sounds like you need every drop of oil you got, don’t cry it out – and especially not on the clotheslines!”
He disentangled himself from the clothesline. His joints shrieked so bad I had to cover my ears. Did his daughter’s joints screech like that? I didn’t see how the robot could bear hearing it. Heartless or not: he had ears, anyway.
And so does everyone else in Spencer County. They’d never get away if he walked around with his joints screeching like that. “Well,” I said. “I guess if it’s just a little oil – just enough to get you out of here, you understand – I guess that’s all right.”
***
Mama and Daddy and Uncle Max got home just before dinnertime that night, and they brought a great big load of sweets for me: a candy apple and caramel corn and an elephant ear. I felt so guilty I didn’t feel good about eating any of it, and elephant ears aren’t much good cold anyway. I ate the elephant ear all up, to show how much I appreciated them, so they’d feel warm-hearted and liable to forgive my trespasses and my trespassers.
“A family came by in this old jalopy,” I said. “Mattresses on top of their car ‘n’ everything, like you see in newspaper pictures of Okies. Their car was just caterwauling, so I gave them some oil for it. Hope that’s okay.”
Daddy frowned, but Uncle Max said, “Course! Hope you gave ‘em a bite to eat, too.”
“Guess I didn’t think of it,” I said, and started in on the caramel corn. It tasted pretty nice. “They didn’t ask.”
“Susannah!” Mama scolded gently. “You remember next time. We’re always meant to feed the stranger in our gates.”
asakiyume. Last entry I posted a photo of a sculpture of robot hobos and importuned the world to write the robots' story, and she said, "You should write it! And so: here you go.
The Robot Story
Everybody hates robots. It’s on account of them that we have the Depression: ever since that man Brewster invented them, they’ve taken over most of the old factory jobs and driven just about everyone out of work. “Makin’ themselves workers who don’t need to sleep or eat! Drivin’ real flesh and blood to starvation with their heartless machines!” my uncle Max always shouts, rattling his newspaper whenever there’s another robot story. “The goddamn capitalists – ”
“Don’t use that kind of language in front of Susie,” Mama reminds him.
And then I say, “I wish you’d call me Susannah.” Usually she does, but whenever she wants Uncle Max to talk nicely she forgets, because it’s not much good telling him to think of the children when I’m going on thirteen.
Uncle Max came back to the farm after he got his leg all mangled up in a factory accident up in Chicago – that’s where he got all his socialist ideas. Since then he’s been a fixture and he’s pretty much always around to play checkers or talk books with me, which Mama and Daddy are always too busy to do. The summers’d be just death without him, because we live way out in the middle of nowhere and without him, I’d have no one but the frogs down at the creek to play with.
But that day in late August, even Uncle Max wasn’t on the farm. Mama and Daddy and Max’d all gone off to the country fair, because they all had exhibits in it. As a matter of fact, I did too: my 4-H project that year was hazelnut bread, and just day before yesterday I’d baked up the most beautiful loaf you’d ever seen.
And then I’d gone out to the swing in the backyard to celebrate, even though it was all slippery with rain, and like a fool I fell off and cracked my ankle.
Naturally we couldn’t afford crutches. We couldn’t hardly afford anything: all my dresses were made of old chicken feed sacks, and the town girls made fun of me. So I had to stay home while Mama and Daddy and Uncle Max drove down to the county fair. Even the fact that they’d promised to bring back just about every sweet thing in the whole fair didn’t make me feel much better.
So I was sitting in Daddy’s big old easy chair – a big treat; normally no one but Daddy’s allowed to sit there – eating my delicious hazelnut bread off Mama’s antique blue willow plate, which is her prized possession, and not even enjoying the experience at all on account of tears kept welling up in my eyes.
That’s when I heard the noise out back: this screeching metal noise, like a tractor that hadn’t been oiled in a good long while.
We didn’t have any crutches, but we did have Grandaddy’s old cane, and they left it by my chair in case I needed to use the privy. I set aside Mama’s blue willow plate real carefully, and levered myself up.
I didn’t have the faintest idea what that sound was. You got to understand, we don’t see a lot of robots in our part of the country, on account of if robots came in we’d meet them with pitchforks and crowbars and tear them up to scrap. But it never comes to that: there’s no factories here, and they’re no good at farmwork, so they stay away.
“Hey!” I called. The windows were open, on account of it’s so damn hot (to quote Uncle Max) in August, so for sure if it was a person they could here. “Who’s that trespassing out there? Mama’s always real nice to hobos, and I got a whole loaf of hazelnut bread to share, so if you want something, you ask for it, okay?”
The squeaking sped up. I opened the back door – and there was a robot, lurching away from me as fast as he could. He ran headlong into the clotheslines.
“Hey!” I shouted, and the robot stopped right there, all tangled up in the clotheslines. “Hey you! What’re you doin’ here?”
The robot turned his head, his old pitchfork beard jutting toward me. I figured uneasily that he could probably stab me through with that.
“Please,” he said, and his jaw squeaked as he talked. It made me wince. “We got thrown off the train in the rain last night, and we’re all so stiff.” His chest wasn’t real well put together: you could see the cornfields behind him through the gaps in his tubing, and little flakes of rust kept falling off. “We only need a little oil,” he said. “And then we’ll move on. There are jobs in Pittsburgh…”
“There’s people in Pittsburgh need jobs,” I told him. “Real human people, who can’t work all day and all night like you can, and have to get food to eat and feed their families.”
“I have a family,” the robot pleaded. “We all got soaked last night, and it’s ruining us: we’re afraid our daughter will just lock up…”
“Your daughter?” I shouted. “Did you all rustle together enough scrap to put together a baby robot? No one wants as many of you as there are!”
Greasy tears started in his eyes. They dripped down his nose. I’d never seen a grown man cry before, except Daddy and Uncle Max when Grandma died. I was embarrassed for him, almost, getting so worked up about it; and then embarrassed for me, because of course he’d cry for his daughter. “Well, don’t cry now,” I said, talking real fast. “Sounds like you need every drop of oil you got, don’t cry it out – and especially not on the clotheslines!”
He disentangled himself from the clothesline. His joints shrieked so bad I had to cover my ears. Did his daughter’s joints screech like that? I didn’t see how the robot could bear hearing it. Heartless or not: he had ears, anyway.
And so does everyone else in Spencer County. They’d never get away if he walked around with his joints screeching like that. “Well,” I said. “I guess if it’s just a little oil – just enough to get you out of here, you understand – I guess that’s all right.”
***
Mama and Daddy and Uncle Max got home just before dinnertime that night, and they brought a great big load of sweets for me: a candy apple and caramel corn and an elephant ear. I felt so guilty I didn’t feel good about eating any of it, and elephant ears aren’t much good cold anyway. I ate the elephant ear all up, to show how much I appreciated them, so they’d feel warm-hearted and liable to forgive my trespasses and my trespassers.
“A family came by in this old jalopy,” I said. “Mattresses on top of their car ‘n’ everything, like you see in newspaper pictures of Okies. Their car was just caterwauling, so I gave them some oil for it. Hope that’s okay.”
Daddy frowned, but Uncle Max said, “Course! Hope you gave ‘em a bite to eat, too.”
“Guess I didn’t think of it,” I said, and started in on the caramel corn. It tasted pretty nice. “They didn’t ask.”
“Susannah!” Mama scolded gently. “You remember next time. We’re always meant to feed the stranger in our gates.”
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no subject
Date: 2013-03-04 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-04 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 02:32 am (UTC)Thank you for this--I'm going to link to the story when I put up the photo!
(entry here (http://asakiyume.tumblr.com/post/44589627745/robot-hobos-photo-by-osprey-archer-on))
no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-15 05:23 pm (UTC)First off, I just have to say, I love Susie's (Susannah's?) voice. Having a good "kid's voice" (I guess is the way to phrase it...?) is a really underrated skill in my opinion, and is one thing I really admire about children's authors. Those first couple paragraphs I especially love--so much personality and character dynamics in so few words! I swoon, truly.
And then all the little details, like the blue willow plate, and "(to quote Uncle Max)". And the observation that, even if the robot didn't have a heart, he had ears. And--I COULD PRETTY MUCH JUST GUSH ALL DAY, OKAY?
Suffice it to say, I LOVE IT, and will eagerly gobble up the rest of it when it's done, and if you don't mind, I too would like to give it the ol' tumblr advertisement. <3
It's no smiling tractor, but Data's the closest thing I have to a robot in my icons, hah.no subject
Date: 2013-03-15 05:29 pm (UTC)I'm glad you like it! Feel free to go ahead and put it on tumblr.