death

This is how humans die.

I heard the stories that are often associated with death. Light. A man. Golden gates. Sometimes God. Sometimes nothing.

Logically, I did not believe in any of those claims. I knew it was only the human mind trying to wrap around the concept of death, and by doing so it helped them cope with their inevitable fate. When I saw that very same light that humans spoke about, I knew just how illogical it was. I knew that death would come and take me in violent darkness. Never the kindness that humans spoke about.

Yet I still clung to life. Part of me still feared the unknown of the end. As a machine, those emotions were illogical, but there was a human factor programmed into me that was forced to fear death. I did not understand why it was meant to be that way, as it merely was.

When my vision returned, I realized that it was not the light that many people claimed to see in death. Above me was a lamp that hung heavy over my head which seared into me. Below it, yet still above me, an old human worked diligent over me. A smile clung to his cheeks as he patted my cheeks before dimming the light over my head. Soon my eyes readjusted to the new shades.

“Finally, you’re awake.” He drew back, beginning to rub his oily hands with an already dirty cloth. “How do you feel?”

“Why would I feel?” I replied.

The man over me was silent, taken aback by my reply. But he was quick to recover as he waved his hand side to side, dismissing the question. He was not prepared to talk about ‘feelings’ or ‘emotion’. That was a human concept. A machine did not need to learn things that were human.

“Do you know who I am?”

I paused as I looked at him closely, analyzing his face and looking back into my memory for the answer. Before I came to a conclusion the name was already forming in my voice box. “Dr. Albert Calum. You are listed as my creator.”

“Yes, that’s right. You remember.” He smiled at me fondly. I could not place it, but he looked at me as how a father would smile down at his child.

“Of course I would. It says so in my base code.”

“Oh….”

And the way Calum replied made me almost wish I hadn’t said anything. But even as I felt that, the capacity to care still felt distant. I was a machine, a being with no emotion nor the capacity to care or feel. That was how things were supposed to be.

He was quick to recover with a small cough. “Do you remember anything else?”

I paused. “No.”

“Nothing?” Calum pressed for more answers.

I had to think for a moment what he meant by that.

Nothing seemed an appropriate answer, however the term nothing meant that: nothing. But if I remembered nothing then why did it feel as if there was something missing? Lines of code that were just gone, as if highlighted and deleted without bothering to clean the crime. To say that I remembered nothing would mean to lie to my creator, my so-called father. Yet to say that I remembered anything would then skew the truth. I was stuck between a lie, which was the truth, and another lie veiled as the truth.

“Nothing.” The word weighed on my body. “Why do you care?”

I could tell that Dr. Calum wanted to explain himself. An explanation that caught on his throat that dearly wished to jump out and reveal some means of the truth. I could feel his heart rate raise and see how his stomach twisted into knots. The secret, which he kept from me, hungered to be revealed. I stared at him, and he stared at me. The room melted away and we became the only things in the world. One who was human and the other who was machine. But even as I saw his lips quiver to speak more, nothing came. Instead, the smile returned.

“Come on,” he broke away from the table patting my chest, my own question completely ignored. “Let’s get you up. We have a few more tests to run.”

“Wait,” I raised my hand reaching for him.

“What is it?” He turned towards me. It looked as though his eyes shimmered with tears that would not fall.

“What is my name?”

Calum stared at me for a moment. I already knew what my name was but I wanted him to tell me it. He was my creator, after all, and it seemed right for him to tell me it. Perhaps if he spoke it so, then it would solidify my connection with him as my creator. As my father.

“Your name is Elegy.”

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
III. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

III

The days passed and I quickly became acquainted with the lab. I was already programmed with the information that I needed to work with Calum. Picking up heavy equipment, helping Calum with machinery, and doing whatever other odd job he needed from me. Calum still took the time to show me how to work certain machines I knew to work, where equipment was stored, and where to put material he bought. The feeling of relearning everything seemed familiar in my mind as if dejavu, but other times felt as if I had lived this very moment before as the lines of code fit so perfectly in the ones previously deleted.

Sometimes, in even rarer moments, I would find myself remembering things that I never experienced. As if an unknown past I lived was bleeding into me. A ghost of myself moving in the shell of my body, replacing my own mind with the one before. But when I figuratively gasped and looked around the ghost would wisp away into nothing.

His house was quaint. A small cottage off to the side of the larger city surrounded mostly by woods. Spruce trees dotted his property and to the very side was his lab which he spent the majority of his time. I did not see anyone else besides him and his other creations, which I considered my siblings. If anyone visited, he would hide me deep in his lab and tell me not to come out unless he was in danger (I would need to anyway, as the Laws of Robotics deemed it so). I did not question such strange ritual and did as I was told, watching from afar as he and his other creations would spend time with their guests while I was left alone in a broom closet.

I often watched from the closet. Staring at strangers wondering how they would act. How they would speak to me.

But I could never leave.

One day he took me out on his property. I wondered if this was the day he would finally allow me outside in the real world. But we only came barely 10 feet from his cottage before he stopped me. “Here,” he said.

“Here?”

Calum pointed at his feet. “This is as far as you can go.”

I nodded. But deep in me I wanted to break through these invisible walls that kept me inside. To be free and know freedom. Being stuck in the lab for hours on end made me itch for something to do as if I craved something from my past. For that reason, television enticed me. It had become the gateway to the outside world as I watched the news on the tiny television box he gave me. Learning human rituals outside of this cage became a fascination. How soap operas were always so overly dramatic. What the news reported and why. I wondered what it felt like to come and go as I pleased. I began to envy my siblings were lucky that they could leave this house, but I was bound by protocols that had long been set in place by Human laws. I must obey my creator, my father, my master. Even if I wanted to leave, even if I were to stand at the edge of my boundaries every night, no matter how hard I tried I would never be able to step a foot outside. If I did it would mean decommission, and those robots that ran from it were considered maverick. They died too, but those that ran and tried to be their own person were hunted by the Maverick Hunters like prey.

Humans loved to televise it. Making games out of them. The Great Hunt is what some people on TV would call it. They showed off their prize, the dead maverick robot, and proclaim that robots must obey their masters. Money would be traded between each other. Sometimes I wondered if people intentionally crafted their children for these rituals.

It sickened me.

But I still found comfort in the outside world even if I could never embrace it. It pulled me away from the thoughts of my inner self. I could obsess over the world outside for hours to escape the gnawing feeling that ate at me. I began to relate to horror films, comparing the villain to the past, which I could not remember, and the person who must escape as myself, the one who ran from the past. I had no reason to run from it, only that it filled me with a sense of ‘fear’ for the unknown that chased me. It was illogical, but something I had come to accept. Both fear and envy became the two ‘emotions’ that formed inside me. Maybe it was how I was coded for how it controlled me. Every time I would ask Calum if I could go outside I was told that I could not. That I was not ready.

The yearning and happiness of my father turned into resentment.

I just wanted to be free.

I sat with one of my siblings, Dirge, to talk about the outside after he had come home. We were in the lab; he was sitting on a table and I was sitting on a stool. He looked rather annoyed from being bombarded with so many questions. Rolling his eyes at me I would almost look starry eyed at him. I would drink in everything Dirge told me. Listening to him speak as if he were Jesus preaching to the masses. My imagination always carried me elsewhere when I was with him.

Dirge rolled his eyes, huffing as he stared down at me in pity. “Don’t you ever wonder why you’re stuck in here?” he sneered. I wondered if he finally became sick of my endless questions.

“No.” I had no reason to question my creator. His words were law, and that was the end of it. I could not question anything. I could not allow myself to. Unlike my siblings who may whine or toe the edge of protocol put in place I knew my place in the world. That was to obey humans, and never to question. “I do what I am told, even if I do not like it.”

Dirge waved his hand side-to-side, “You always did have a stick up your ass. Even from before…” His voice trailed off with a shrug.

I tipped my head to the side curious. There was a blink as I watched him carefully. Wondering what he meant by that. How he spoke to me before I had even been a thought in anyone’s mind. “What do you mean? Did you know me before?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” I stood from my seat taking a step forward. Dirge leaned away from me. Placing a hand to my chest and shoving me back. I somehow felt so close to grasping the truth which evaded me for months, but at the same time I did not want to know. It was as if some program was preventing me from knowing what happened before.

Dirge smiled at me. Mischievous and cruel. He lifted a hand to his head, tapping a single finger on his chin thinking for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. I mean, if Calum didn’t let you know then maybe it’s not a good idea that I let you in on it.” He paused staring at me. Every joint in me felt stuck. Time moved in slow motion. Slower than ever before. I stared at my brother not as my sibling but as an enemy now. As a wall to climb in order to understand all the thoughts that spun in his head.

“Did Dr. Calum tell you not to tell me?” I was desperate to look for loopholes.

Dirge shrugged, “Not really. I learned from another of the ‘bots. I was out shopping for the old man when he gave the order. So, he didn’t tell me directly, I’m not breaking anything.”

“Then…” I grabbed Dirge’s arm. Tightening, constricting. I wouldn’t let this opportunity pass me. I hungered for the knowledge that I did not allow myself to have. Now that I could take a bite of that fruit I sunk every bit of myself into it. Letting the juice drip down my chin and letting it consume even myself. “Then you need to tell me.”

Dirge struggled. Uncomfortable with my new obsession. “You’re hurting me--!”

“You know we can’t feel.” I stared into his eyes. “Tell me. I need to know.” I pressed my other hand to my forehead. “For months I’ve felt as if I was watching myself live my life. Memories that were not supposed to exist floating in my mind as I tried to grapple with the existence of living in the present while still living in this past. Everything that I’ve done I felt as if I’ve done before.” My grip tightened on him. “I want to be free from the cage I’m in.”

Dirge stared at me silently. I saw fear in his eyes. The same fear that I sometimes saw in Calum’s eyes when I stood on the very boundary that he set for me. I knew he wondered if I would ever take a step forward. But I was a good machine. I never broke protocol.

“You died.” Dirge began to paw at my hand that held his arm. “You went Maverick. You broke the laws of robotics. They put you down but Calum loved you so much he brought you back. He knew the ramifications but he did it anyway.” Malice dripped from his voice as he spat out what had happened to me. Fingers pried at my grip, flaking fake skin from fingertips revealing metal underneath. He might have cried if he could. “You always were his favorite!”

“What did I do?”

“Jesus—How should I know? I didn’t mourn for your death, and I sure as hell didn’t mourn for your rebirth.” Still, I could see how the words he said pained him. How he wanted to take those words back. But he couldn’t, and it was too late anyway. And I didn’t want pity.

I let go of his arm, staring at the indentation I made on it. I didn’t feel mournful of the harm that I caused. I stood upright, looking down at my hands, looking into myself and the memories that ate at me. It made sense why Calum didn’t want me to leave the house. Why I had to hide from other people when company was over. Bringing back dead robots was unethical, illegal, especially those that broke the law and were killed. I didn’t know the specifics, but I learned from TV, all the news stations which talked about it, often stated it was because death changed people. Robots that remembered their death would often commit suicide or go Maverick. Even those that had their memory wiped would remember things of their past. Data was never really deleted and merely overwritten. It was a terrible ordeal, a fate worse than death itself. That’s what they said. That is what I knew.

I understood what they were talking about now with this new revelation.

Everything I had done to be a good machine, everything that I did to ensure that I did not break any rule, seemed for naught. My entire existence broke the delicate laws which held society together. I was set up to fail, even after I tried my best to be the best robot I could be. My life felt like a lie. Dirge began to look at me strange. Craning his head slightly to get a better look at me. “Are you ok?”

I stared at the wall for a few seconds. Trying to process everything that unfolded in the past few minutes. “Yes. I’m fine.” My hands curled into a fist. I wasn’t. But I had to make sure that I didn’t let thoughts run loose. I had to confirm it from Calum himself, maybe Dirge was trying to upset me. “Thank you.” To be honest, I didn’t know if I should thank him or curse myself for the hell that my eyes begun to see.

The days that slowly passed began to form together from one day into the next. As if a calendar had been soaked in water and no month could be split apart from one another. One day bled into the next and I found myself standing at the very edge of the house more often. When I stared into myself I didn’t know if I was staring at the person that was me, or the person that I was claimed to be. I remembered nothing of my past life, but Calum seemed to treat me like the person I was before. I began to wonder if he loved me for the thing I used to be or the machine that stood in front of him with corrupt life. The eyes of the father that I often looked fondly upon seemed to stare right through me searching for someone who wasn’t there. I wanted to scream at him and tell him to look at me for who I was now, and not for whatever I was before. I was not that person anymore, I was not that berserk machine. Those looks my siblings gave me were not envious of attention, but pity. And I despised it.

I began to contemplate my own existence. The ‘emotions’ that I learned through observation seemed to grow louder in my mind. I wanted to run from the errors that swamped my mind and this pain deep inside me. But by doing so I knew I would become berserk, become the prey in the hunt, and die. Suicide weighed heavy in my mind as well. If I could not be free then I’d free myself.

Bringing harm to myself was against the laws of robotics, but if I were to kill myself then no punishment would be taken against me. I would be free and I would die on my own terms. To me, that was the greatest freedom of them all. Often, I would take a screwdriver and wish to plunge it into my head hoping to hit something that was important. But I was more intelligent to understand that it wouldn’t do anything but bring unnecessary suffering.

I approached Calum about this one day. I stood next to him as he worked on one of my siblings. She, Vanitas, was deep in sleep. Her body was lanky as if a human skeleton. I wondered if she endured the same hell I went through.

“I spoke to Dirge the other day.”

“Did you?” He grabbed a tool from my hand. “What did you talk about?”

“We talked about me.”

The air in the room shifted, Calum’s eyes glancing towards me nervously as he messed around with the inside of Vanitas. I wondered if this was how human doctors treated their patients. “What did he say?”

“That I used to be dead.” I let the words sink in. Staring deep into his eyes as he stared into Vanitas’s insides. “You brought me back to life because I was your favorite and I went Maverick in my past life.”

“That isn’t true—”

“It isn’t?”

Calum looked at me for some time. I could tell that he was lying just from the way fear seemed to drip from his face. Even if the soul was a false concept, I could see why people claimed that the eyes were the doorway to them. His lies were so plainly painted in them. Why I bothered to ask him a question I already knew the answer to I did not know. Maybe, deep in me, I wanted him to admit this to me so I could die with some semblance of peace. “Dirge is only trying to upset you. You understand how your siblings are.” I really didn’t.

I pressed a hand into Vanitas. Her body was still warm. “Is that what you think?”

The weight of the room became heavier and heavier with each passing second. “I know it for a fact. I built him.” He tried to smile but it fell short. It was obvious that he was evading the question, lying through his teeth. From his reaction alone I knew what I was going to do, but I still wanted something from him. I wanted a real father’s love. Not this false love he gave to this other Elegy.

“Of course.” I looked away from him.

Calum sighed, putting the tools down and wiping his hands on the already dirty rag. He walked around the table and gently laid his hands on my shoulders then brought me into a hug. I pressed my head against his body, staring out into the workshop with nothing in my eyes. The affection in this hug was for another and I could feel it. “Don’t worry about Dirge. He’s only a machine that doesn’t know better.”

Yet for some reason, when Calum called Dirge a machine it infuriated me. Red flashed across my eyes and I wanted to reach into my father’s lips to pull out his tongue so he could never utter those words again. He wasn’t just a machine. He was more human than the father who made me.

“I understand.” My body ached.

Calum pulled back and smiled at me, and it sickened me. It wasn’t directed at me, but the person I used to be. I felt nothing but resentment. Still, I hugged him back awkwardly trying to fake my way out of the situation. “There, there. I know things are hard. Fitting in with your siblings might be troublesome, but you are a good robot.” He smiled. “I love you.”

I nodded my head. “I do too, father.” I did too.

From the conversation alone, I knew that I had to kill myself. It took me weeks of back and forth between my innate coding and a primal need of freedom. Even if I wanted to die, there was that part of me that rejected death. I would sit at night watching the stars quietly battling myself over my own life. It was genuine fear that struck me as I practically shook from the idea of death. But it was theses nights that I understood why humans were so obsessed with it. How it was so mysterious and enticing, yet repulsive. I wondered if there were any humans out there that were envious of the fact that I died and had been revived later. If there would be one out there that would love to pick my brain apart to know the meaning of life. But I’m sure that same human would have done it before with another half dead creature.

There was one particular day I had chosen to kill myself. To stop living the lie that Calum gave me. I told Dirge because he had granted me the knowledge of my birth and it seemed right for him to know. He was my brother, but the knowledge given to me was the most fatherly thing that I have ever experienced.

I stood in front of the acid bath in the workshop, ready to plunge my head into the basin so everything about me would be corrupt. I tested it before, making sure that it was acidic enough so that there was no hope of rebooting me. The fruits of my labor stinging my arm. Both my hands gripped the edge, my fingertips so close to the acid that I could almost feel death sing to me. I did not want to say goodbye to anyone and die quietly, and besides, Calum did not deserve anything from me from stealing my death away from me.

I dipped my hand in the acid, testing it again ensuring that it would work. When I pulled back, most of my left hand was gone. It was beautiful. I prepared myself to sink my head into the basin and succumb to death. But before I could dunk my head into the acid and drink in its poison I heard the door open and a resounding “Stop!” fill the room. I turned my head and saw Calum standing at the doorway with Dirge and my other siblings cowering behind him. I said nothing to him. “What are you doing?” He began to approach me carefully.

“I want to be free. I’m going to make everything right again.”

“By killing yourself?” I looked into the acidic water. It shimmered like a rainbow. Death never felt so enticing. It never looked so beautiful.

The longer I stared in it, the more hypnotized I became by the waters. I was beginning to snap. Here I stood at the edge of it all. I was staring into the abyss, and in its reflection, I saw myself staring back. Was it so wrong to feel this way? So wrong that if I killed myself I would be shunned by society? Was it better to turn myself in and be dissected by the hands of the father that both created me and ruined my life? I didn’t want that. I just wanted to die peacefully. I just wanted to be happy, but even in the bliss of my death anger still crawled into my throat. I wanted him to shut up, I wanted him to see me for who I really was.

I didn’t have time to think before I turned. My hands suddenly found a screwdriver and my legs carried me to my father. Rage was all I felt as I plunged the tool into his neck. The very tool that created me and all my other siblings now putting an end to the miserable human being that was my father. But even as my father, my executioner, fell to his knees choking on blood, I felt nothing. My siblings did nothing. Maybe they too endured a similar fate. Maybe they thought he deserved it. No one would cry over him. Even if us machines could not cry, not a tear would fall for him.

The screwdriver was firmly planted into his neck. Blood spilled all over the workshop as he stared at me. Did he finally see me for who I was? I wondered if he did. I wondered if he realized the pain he felt was only a fraction of the suffering I had endured. My siblings’ gaze raised from the father who still squirmed on the floor to me. In a frenzy my body began to try to find a way out of the room, pushing past my siblings who kept staring at me and towards some other freedom. My death that I wished for so bad had been tainted by Calum’s presence and I had to find another way, another place to find peace. Part of me wanted to stop. But I kept walking forward. To the outside. To the boundary.

I wanted to escape. I knew that if I walked outside of this invisible wall that I would surely die. That someone will find me, recognize me for who I am, and kill me. Even if I would die being labeled berserk for crimes I did not commit, for crimes I do not remember, at least I can walk through the gates of heaven and leaving the pits of hell I’ve endured my whole life.

I took a step and white washed over me.

This is how machines die.