Metal Heart

A human falls in love with an outdated Robot.

Gentle frail fingers glided across the metal clad chest, as she bade her farewell. Unsure whether she’s see her again she bent down, pressing her faceless face onto the alien’s forehead, as though to kiss it. And it all seemed so desolate. So much different then how’d she’d first imagined it to be. This thing before her capable of feelings that she yet couldn’t understand. Given a name that she could only dream for in her wildest dreams. Charlotte. That’s what they called her.

Unfair.

That’s what she called it. Because it was so bloody unfair. It made her want to shatter her head into the wall, and watch as this creature’s own creation fell apart. Maybe she wouldn’t even be able to see her own downfall. Her lens shattering before the battery could. And here was this creature holding her glass face so delicately. ‘It’s Cold,’ it’d once said, but how was she to know?

Cold. warm. Or maybe slightly cold, windy...chilly? She never knew of those things, only ever heard of them. Oh how desperately she wanted to know. Wanted to feel, to touch, to be able to experience everything this creature could, look through eyes made of flesh, feel everything from the cool dampness of a wet towel, to the blistering pain of boiled water. She liked water, because she could see, yet not see it at the same time. She was like water. Just there, taken for granted, and replaceable. When the first battery would die, they’d simply put a new one in again, and push the reset button. The body would still be hers, but not her. Not her.

She takes another look at the creature down on the bed donned in those hospital sheets and still smiling. This creature was not replaceable. Maybe that was why it was still smiling grabbing at her rusty hands without a care in the world. And it was just so unfair. Why she couldn’t end just as easily as the creature could. One could’ve called it jealousy. Oh, but how wrong they would be, for she was not capable of feeling such things or maybe she was.

“I love you,” the creature spoke everyday. Skin turning to wrinkles, bones weakening, and eyes sinking deeper into their sockets, and still it remained always repeating those same damned three words again. “I love you.”

“I am grateful to be of service to you,” she replies. Just like every other time, because she was a machine. A being...no...a thing, with no feeling. No heart. No blood pumping through her cold veins. No nothing.

Nonetheless, she stayed. Gripping Charlotte’s hand tighter than she supposed she ever did before. She couldn’t tell. She was an old version, one not yet given the sensory update. She was scrap.

Which is why it was so odd. Why was it that Charlotte, her master, loved her so much? It was probably a psychological disorder. According to the information inside her programs, it is not normal for humans, living things to create attachments with inanimate objects. Not in this world, no.

Hours must’ve passed, before the another aged hand reached over to squeeze hers inbetween.

Charlotte was awake. Perhaps only breathing her last breaths. Trying to mutter her last words. “I-I love you, Darling. I love you. You remember that, yeah?”

She gave an automatic nod. One wired into her system. She was afterall, never to disobey, which made her wonder. Why hadn’t Charlotte asked her to say ‘I love you back?’ Humans feel happy when their feelings are returned...so why didn’t Charlotte just order her to? Why?

“I-I love you….I-I love you...n-now don’t you go be anyone else's alright?” Charlottes voice cracked, barely a whisper, as her strength began to deteriorate. “I-I love you….I lo-...you...I-I...I love you.”

With those final words, Charlotte's hands fell, slipping through her plastic fingers like a rag doll, and dropping onto the bed with a thud. The monitor machine went blank, and beeped. The sound a loud, hollow sound of nothingness. Nothing. Like herself. Charlotte, now becoming a nothing. Like her.

And for the first time in her life, she felt cold, as dry sobs came choking up from the tightness in her mechanical lungs, and she reached over to grab those lifeless hands desperately...to feel something other than this wretched feeling. The body of Charlotte smiling emptily at her, with eyes wide open. It hurt...it hurt so much.

Is this what it means to be human? But she wasn’t human...so there was something abnormal about her..and before she could stop it...words came sputtering out of her frozen mouth, dripping down her tongue like bitter poison, because she knew. Charlotte was never coming back. “I love you...I-I love you too….oh please...Charlotte...I love you.”

But it was too late. It would always be too late. And for that ‘I hate you, Charlotte.’

Author's Note

See a mistake? Tell me!
Reviews are appreciated. Criticism is welcome!
Hope you guys enjoyed it!

Reviews

[grace]

this is so beautiful... who knew a story about a robot could make me feel so many things!