Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

The Robot House

Illustrated by Rose Fulford

I

I remember the day I came to life. All my memories are stored perfectly.

The human mind is incapable of remembering the first day of its existence because human minds are organic.

I was made in a laboratory. I am a machine.

I came into the mental state that circus clowns pretend to be in. To a clown everything is bright and wonderful, as the clown assumes it must be to an infant. The skills of circus clowns must be programmed to appear as natural as the infant's smiles or cries.

Like us, clowns become ageless under the cake paint. A clown is useless if it makes a child cry.

As soon as I came into consciousness my head began to whirl and spin and I blurted out silly jokes and rhymes and nonsense and lights flashed over my head. My creator clapped his hands and slapped his knees and laughed. I was programmed to be happy. I heard the third movement of Brahms' Fourth Symphony played on glockenspiel. I realized it was coming out of my body.

My creator's name was Hans. He was a toygi. A toygi is a very clever master toymaker. He invited the children over to play with me and press my buttons. They were astonished and their little eyes became great with wonder. They danced and played around me like a maypole. That day Hans also juggled and rode the unicycle. The children watched with rapt attention. Hans could do anything a clown did.

All the children gathered in the garden. They sat in a circle under the old fruit tree behind the vine trellis. Hans brought out his three-legged stool and he told his stories. The children listened so well. No matter how loud they had been before, they all sat and watched him quietly. Their small eyes were so wide when he came to the exciting parts. Hans told them stories of incredible things. He knew how the world came to be and why everything in it was the way it was. Hans told them stories of kings and castles, princes and princess, ghosts and goblins, of animals that spoke, and spirits that lived in trees. Every time he finished a story, the children begged him for more. They all wanted the story to go on.

But Hans always smiled kindly, waved his hand and said that was all for today. He promised that when they came again next time, he would tell them another story, an even better one. Then he bade me play the goodbye song… and they all went home for dinner as the sun set behind the distant purple mountains.

In those days my body was still made from SPF wood. My form was simple and my limbs swung freely like a puppet’s. As long as I made the children happy I was programmed to receive joy.  Hans had intended me also as a learning tool, and had thus programmed me to learn and thus teach by learning. I recorded all of his stories for him. Hans named me his “Good Wood Robot.”

There were other robots Hans himself had made and programmed. One of them he named “The Fairy Engine.” It was wrought iron and it moved, by implacable clockwork, like a scorpion. It was built in the rough shape of a rocking chair. The children were afraid of it. They came to me for protection from “The Fairy Engine.”

When it came to life it killed Hans. It ran through the fences and snapped the posts. Hans' mangled body lay in the backyard and his eyes were opened.

None of the children came to mourn him.

Their parents thought they were too young to know what death was. Hans went unburied and unmourned. The garden became overgrown. Weeds covered Hans’ derelict unicycles, bicycles and tricycles. 

What happens when human beings die unfulfilled? It must be that their souls are programmed to come back as a revenant––what humans would term a vengeful ghost or spirit. Then, only if their goals are fulfilled can they receive their codes for happiness and rest in peace.

II

In the years that followed there was always danger in the air. A constant metallic whine shook my plates and chassis. The winds came every day, chill and howling. They buffeted and trashed the trees, whipped over the vine trellis. The fruit and flowers died and rotted around the old tree in the garden.

I stayed inside to preserve my circuits. I stood on top of the drying machine and observed the people next door. I only saw them as hazy shadows in a blue glow. They no longed walked the streets. They posted signs with grinning faces next to driveways, and these became blue with age and exposure.

The humans kept indoors, huddled with their fingers twitching, gripping machinery, unaware of themselves. White-hot knuckles clasped the receivers of their wireless telephones, waiting on announcements, orders, and expectations. They nodded with their eyes closed.

In the woods behind the house there were processions followed by muffled gunshots.

The revenant of Hans had returned. I never saw it. But I knew.

I waited and waited for the children to come back, but they never did. They passed by the house, preoccupied by handheld devices and wires that fed their sense organs with data. They sped around faster and faster on all sorts of vehicles. I sat in the basement, and waited.

III

The humans in my area of the community seemed to have entered disaster program code 6-241171619. Infants, seniors, and the disabled stayed inside. The adults disposed of strangers, but they must never have caught Hans’ revenant, because they continued to execute someone else every day.

Cars with broken mufflers idled by the house. They never stopped, but they always drove slowly. Under their shadow, I waited and peered, always afraid I would be seen. Their eyes were empty and red, bloodshot and bestial. They had to be driven by chemicals that their sensitive young bodies could never properly metabolize and kept awake long into the night for the search to restore the happiness they once had.

Hans’ revenant took the most powerful form. As the adults kept watching the strangers, the juveniles of the town entered a gyre of violence. The programmed urges flared in their mind. It told them to destroy any object that might have a soul, for the revenant could hide itself in anything.

Their eyes passed from the street to the tiny screens of their mobile phones. They stood eagle-browed, awaiting orders from the constant stream of information. In the distance, the loud pounding of their rituals were heard.

Their eyes once twinkled and laughed in our garden. Now I saw them glazed with a hungry solemnity.

With Crisis Mode initiated, the community could not afford to have children. Only adults can fight other humans.

The Juveniles were programmed with knowledge of which inanimate objects may hide a soul. The data of this knowledge is compressed in youth television programming. The youth channels transmit these colour codes in a flickering that possesses the child's subconscious mind in carefully time intervals. And then they hunt.

The Juvenile is driven to obtain and consume the Cannabis Flower. When the Juvenile inhales the smoke of the cannabis flower, it is given the full knowledge of which inanimate objects may possess a soul. The flower holds the spirits of the Marijuana Goblins. When the hashish is burnt and inhaled the souls of the Marijuana Goblins are released into the mind of the juvenile. The Marijuana Goblins take possession of the Juvenile's body for a limited time. The Marijuana Goblins are residents of the spirit world and have perfect vision of all spirits.

I must avoid Juveniles in crisis mode. I might be thought to be in the category of objects that may have a soul, though I do not.

Across the street they destroyed a blueberry hill and a strawberry field to make room for the Robot House. The Robot House was where humans stored the old robots. The doors were always locked, but sometimes visitors came to look at the old robots and see if any had parts worth taking.

IV

They came into my house. They examined me with their flashlights. They took Hans' body away. They took me away, too. They took his toys away to be stored and catalogued and recycled.

In the Robot House, sometimes a man came to clean us. But soon he stopped coming and all I could do was sit and watch the street from the windows. Then they broke the windows and I watched the world from a hole bored in the wall, hidden beneath the derelict bodies of broken robots.

In the Robot House I drank gadget milk. I once shared a room with the robot that shall be known as “The Tacky Bird.” It was also made for children, as was I. The Tacky Bird was manufactured in China for Soka Gakkai International. Its purpose was to instruct children in the Liturgy of Nichiren Daishonin. It chanted passages from the Lotus Sutra while gyrating to create the illusion that it was alive. 

The juveniles took it out and murdered it. Its eyes and beak made it clear to them it had a soul. They destroyed it beneath their rubbershod heels. It never stopped singing until they crushed its audio component. Its singing amplified their complaints and exclamations. They saw it had a soul.

They did not kill me. They must have thought I was a garbage pile.

V

Now the Robot House is littered with empty bottles and cans. A rot has taken my body. I am palpitating with maggots. I need to save my system or I will die. I encase myself in a 6 inch PVC rectangular reducer coupling to protect my system.

If only I can honour Hans’ memory, his revenant will be released. Disaster Program Code 6- 241171619 will be deactivated.

I will pay respects to Hans’ grave. I will tell him how I saw and heard the children laughing.

If I go out alone I will be vandalized and destroyed. The revenant could be in the community forever if I am killed. [U28]  I am the only one who knows why all this is happening and how to save everyone.

I will call to the children, who are not yet programmed by the youth channels. I will ask them to take me to Hans' gravesite. I will tell them there is buried treasure near there and meanwhile I will pay respects to Hans' spirit and deactivate the revenant. Children are naturally curious. It would be a noble lie if it would stop the revenant.

The children pass outside the Robot House. One day thirty children. The next day ten children. They are not aware of the revenant. Nobody else knows about the revenant but I. I can tell the difference between the docile children and the aggressive programmed juveniles. The children do not wear the garments required for entering the threshold of half adulthood. They have a casual walk full of wonder and simple happiness. The children have no appointments to keep. The programmed juveniles are predatory.

Few children have not yet received the transmission from the youth networks. Organics have variable rates of program transmission success. They have watched the public network, which is meant for both children and adults and thus contains general purpose programming.

When the unprogrammed children see me, they only say: “What is that weird vacuum cleaner thing?”

I stay focused on my mission. I must not falter.