Gichael
Mallimore
Versus
The
Robots
By Derik
Taylor
(This was pretty
much what I turned in for an English class the other day)
At the end of
the 21st century there is an almost limitless supply of “free” labor
in the work force, filled daily, hourly by robots out of factories. Gichael Mallimore has
been unemployed since – well he has never been employed really. And he doesn’t know anyone that has been
employed either, come to think of it, he only knows one other person, a female,
Penny (he thinks is her name). She lives
in the apartment across the hall from him and he thinks he heard the name Penny
come through the wall a few years ago.
They have only spoken once, exchanged hellos once.
Most of Gichael’s time is spent in his apartment, the apartment
that he doesn’t have to pay rent for, but the one in which he has to live. Rarely does he go outside. There are frequent reports on the television
which warn of diseases that you will more than likely contract if you go
out. Plus the factories around the city
chug out whatever it is they chug out constantly and what he remembers about
the great outdoors is a nasty smell. He
can’t even remember the last time he saw the sun. And the television speaks a lot about war and
terrorists. Just last week he watched,
from his little sliver of a window, the building across the street get bombed
by terrorists. Where is it safe? Gichael mused one day while watching
television. He hasn’t been out for … he
can’t remember; it’s been at least a couple of years.
So he goes out,
even though he isn’t supposed to. After
walking a few blocks he is out of breath and he leans against the wall and
catches it. The air is thick and moldy,
like sticking your nose inside of a bottle of old shoe mixed with old woman’s
crotch. He notices how there aren’t that
many humans outside, how there aren’t any humans outside. The sidewalks are full of robots, new, sleek,
shiny black robots with blue eyes, older models that creak as they pass. He isn’t standing there very long before he
is escorted back to his apartment, ‘For your safety,” they say, by two stout
Policemen, Policebots, sorry.
For Gichael day
and night does not exist; the factory lights are bright and the sun is always
blocked by clouds, smoke, fog, smog, whatever. He is always alone in his apartment, watching
television. Years go by and he can’t
remember what he has done with the time.
He can’t even remember what his parents looked like. They died when he was five, they might as
well of died then. It was right after he
had been sent to government school that he lost contact with them. There was a letter from Washington D.C. that
he received a few months after he arrived at his new home, which he kept safe
until he could read and cried when he finally did, his parents were killed, by
… something.
Gichael can’t
remember ever loving another person.
There was the random woman on television that he would develop a crush
for, maybe he loves Penny, yes, he loves her.
When Gichael was
eighteen he went back to his hometown.
Nothing looked the same. There
were no familiar faces. There were no
jobs. He was arrested for vagrancy twice
before he was given the apartment where he lives now. His letters to his classmates have never
gotten a reply, and no one writes him.
The Policebots were telling him something about the current
dangers of being outside in the elements and that until further notice he
should remain indoors … he wasn’t really paying attention; Penny was behind the
Policebots in her doorway. Gichael’s eyes were
looking into hers. It was a great
feeling to see another person. He
thought he could feel her warmth from that distance, about fifteen feet. There was a deep connection between them,
Gichael thought.
Later, when he
was alone in his apartment he decided he was going to talk to Penny. Using the television as a mirror he tried to
see if he was presentable, but what he saw scared him, he did not know the
person he was looking at, he was old now.
He looked into
his hands, they were sickly and pale. He
cried. Then sometime later he asked
himself what is the point of it all?
When he couldn’t think of one reason to live he decided to, uh, get out
of it. The problem Gichael met when he
decided this was that there were no sharp objects to cut himself
on. No really, he doesn’t ever need a
knife or fork to eat with because the meals THEY deliver every
day are – oatmeal for breakfast, nothing for lunch, and for dinner a soft piece
of processed meat, a vegetable square and more oatmeal. There is no glass in the apartment for him to
break and use the shards to cut himself with.
The sliver of a window isn’t made of glass; he doesn’t know what it is
made of. He can’t even kill himself.
A few years
later he has a dream where he is falling.
Taking it as a sign, because he never has dreams, when he wakes up he
walks up twenty-three floors worth of steps.
He hopes he will be able to get to the roof of the building and jump
off, but the door to get there is sealed tight.
On the way back
down he purposely trips and tumbles down a flight of steps. The fall doesn’t kill him, just knocks him
out. When he comes to he throws himself,
head first, down the next flight of steps, this time he breaks his neck. Now he’s dead. And that’s it.
__________________________________________________________________
A note from
Derik:
The future I see
is dark for mankind.
The more I think
about it, the more I hate robots. I was watching
CNN, I think it was March 20 or 21, 2005 and there was this guy talking about
how in the next twenty or thirty years robots will be able to do everything a
human can do. This was from some fucker
at a weapon’s company, a company that I am willing to bet leading government
officials, like say oh the president (maybe), own a hefty stake in. Back to the matter at hand, is it just me or
does that sound fucked up with robots being able to do what we can do? There are what, over 6 billion humans, why
the piss do we need robots that can do what we can do? It seems like there are enough of us to get
the job done.
Speaking of
jobs, they seem scarce now, can you imagine when a company can just buy a robot
to do the work, it would be cheaper and more efficient
than hiring a human. Everything from
retail sales (the robot would have a complete list of every piece of inventory
in the store and could find what you were looking for faster then a person) to
piloting nuclear submarines (I don’t have any examples about this) you will
find a robot doing the job. What happens
when they don’t want to work for us anymore?
Or maybe there is a group of people who are in control of developing
robots and they are doing it to Take Over
The World. We can’t fight against
metal with flesh and bone. They will
beat us.
Within thirty
years today’s arguments over politics, civil rights, abortion, teenage
pregnancy, environmental protection, boxers or briefs will pass from people’s
lips. Our world will be their world, our
creations will create a new world for us where they rule … you’ll see … you’ll
all fucking see and know that I was right.