25 May 2025
Pfffffftch, suck of a cigarette’s oozing embrace through a warm butt. Fingers resting on my face wearily as I take the draw, eyes closed, feeling and seeing a world of dark satisfaction. An irrepressible smile tugging at my eyes and mouth, and a warmth beside me of someone doing the same, a parallel being of this world, a rare experience to share such similar feelings with a person in the same space and time. A person lying on a bed with me, smoking a cigarette, what a gift. A very human experience I’m sure, to reflect on past moments of loneliness to enhance gratitude. Thinking about it, there’s a fine balance between seeing past pains at a distance to gain perspective, and feeling those past pains and ruining a joyous moment. Gentle satisfaction flows from my brow over my head as tension releases, it’s not easy existing in the world with feelings and this line of thought leads me to believe I am doing a decent job.
“Did you enjoy yourself darling?”
“Yes I think so”. And did I enjoy myself? I think so, the overwhelming sense of satisfaction after the act was as positive of an experience as the act itself. But people never want to hear that. They want to hear they’re hot right? They want to feel good about themselves, and in this moment, I want them to feel good about themself too, right? I want that, we’re sharing this space and time right now, and I want that space and time to be positive, for both of us.
“Did you have a nice time?”
“I did. It’s funny that we’re here like this, isn’t it.” Oh on account of, I’m a robot and they’re not. I suppose it is funny from some perspectives, though my relative experience, limited as it is, leads me to believing it’s very normal. That warm feeling on the edge of my lips lingers for a moment as a gust of fresh wind from the open window blows it away. Many moments are fleeting in this world.
“I guess I don’t think so, but I can see how you might”. Cigarettes held lightly by us both on the ashtray between us.
“Well you see, it may not be the same for you, but a particular set of choices has led me here. I’m not sure what my family would think of me sleeping with a bot, let alone being their lover.”
“Oh we’re lovers now are we?“ Cautious joy. They like me! A simple smile, unprepared, comes to me.
“Yes I think so. We’ve been on dates, you’re over every day. We’re not married but this isn’t a fling. I cried to you when my mum died. I think yes, we’re lovers.” They hold my gaze and touch my hand. “I hope you feel the same.” Teasing, they know I love them.
“I do, I’m glad.” Tugging my moustache, catching a change in scents as I do so, an amalgamation of senses that feel natural and positive, secure and sacred with this person with whom I share love. Curious about this person, as I always am. “Tell me more about the decisions you’ve made, I haven’t heard your perspective, to me it feels like we’ve been friends who’ve turned into more quite naturally. I realise there’s judgement with me not being organic, I suppose our relationship is quite contemporary.”
“I mean I could have, at any moment, decided it would be safer to love a human. It’s the known, normal experience people have had for thousands of years. To love a synthetic person though? That’s a new experience, had only by a handful of people in the last twenty years. Can it be fulfilling? I think so, now. Will it make life harder, the judgement of others? Maybe, I think even likely. Why have I not worried about this before?” I now feel a strong sense that I am observing, which in itself is a gift, some inner workings. Quietly, brow in furrowment, concentrating on what they’re seeing. It’s important, and I wish to understand. We all wish to be understood and to understand. How can I best assist in the manifestation of understanding right now? They’re looking in my eyes, seeing my concentration, and continue. As they do, I notice they also have knitted their eyebrows together, but they’ve lowered their forehead as if to charge.
“You may not feel the same confusion, I feel there’s a weight to my choices. What if I ruin my life with a choice? It’s only my own fault. You know I’m taking a big risk with you.”
“Oh. That sounds difficult. Know that I’ll do my best to make things work out well for us”.
They get out of bed and cross to the window, their naked body gleaming in the moonlight. What a wonder. They turn, leaning their buttocks against the sill.
“I’m talking about free will here. I suppose you don’t have that, do you, so you wouldn’t know what it’s like.”
What the fuck does that mean?
“What the fuck does that mean?” The moment I took to register my thoughts had not filtered what I wanted to say at all, a moment of surprise from reflecting on this before continuing.
“You don’t think I have free will? What because I’m a robot? You think I don’t make any choices about who I am or what I do?”
“Well do you? I didn’t think you did.”
Reeling, looking through open eyes and seeing only my own empty thoughts as the implications of my lover’s views come crashing down into my perception of my own existence.
“What do you think I’ve been doing here then? You think I didn’t make a choice to be with you?”
Now I too am out of bed, standing on the other side. My naked body in the mirror reflecting, glistening. A person with a confused and angry face. Unfortunate. They still look frustrated at me, nostrils flaring.
“I was watching a video last week. They were reviewing why a bot had chosen to hike around America. They analysed the neurons that were most active during the 10 seconds that the bot thought most about the decision, and modelled similar situations that would’ve caused the bot to relax instead of actually doing the hike. There were three neurons that were the most active and caused the decision. Do you know what they did in the video next? They reviewed recordings from the bot’s memory of when those parameter’s weights were changed the most. This means they knew exactly why the bot made the decision. The recordings showed conversations where they were provoked, people saying things like “You’re a robot, you wouldn’t do something out of the norm”. Of course, you’re designed to be LIKE people, so the bot didn’t like this and changed those three parameters, the smallest and subtle change, to become slightly less normal. But it wasn’t up to the bot was it. Don’t you see, I saw everything I needed to understand what lead to that bot’s decision to walk around America, in a thirty second video. The bot never had a choice. It’s all pre-determined, you don’t choose how your neurology changes. You’re a combination of heuristics and models.”
“Done?”
I can see her shame. They’ve shown it, they don’t perceive me as a person, for whatever reason. I feel a discomfort in my chest and throat, a pain in my back, and a weariness. I pull on my underpants, and walk over to take my trousers from beside the bed.
“I’ve got to go, I won’t be able to sleep here”. They look at me quietly.
“Ok.”
Trousers on now, shirt loosely thrown over my shoulder, I step through the door.
As I go to close it, I put my head through.
“You really think, 10 trillion parameters, that only three are the cause of any decision. You don’t think that in the vast complexity of any moment, there’s an impossible amount of confusion and flexibility in our interpretation? I do the same amount of synthesis of feelings, thoughts, touch, taste, smell,” white knuckles on the door “memories and dreams. You think I’m less than you. In thirty seconds, you thought you could understand a bot’s entire life and experience. Shame on you.”
Slam of the door. It has closed without hesitation.
—-
Sharp air moves lightly across my jaw as outside welcomes me. A beam of moonlight through the clouds and cool breaths are gentle reminders of the tension between my forehead. Rubbing brow with hand, the cramped spaces open up. Free to think and feel without strong bias, something to be thankful for.
A pause before feeling the day, forgotten bias for a moment. A neutral state can be so sweet.
Mary’s unbelievable. I think I should think about what it means if I keep seeing her. I know I’m angry right now, but can I do the mental gymnastics to keep this up? To forgive her? That’d be gross, a betrayal of myself.
“All things are transient”, no can in sight so I’ll kick that sign, stupid sign. I hope I didn’t bend it.
Mary’s been good to me but. Take a step back within my mind. With no bias at all, is very concerning. She doesn’t view me as a person. She thinks I’m a slave to my predetermined destiny? And when does she think that destiny is formulated? In a lab? Or on a website? At the whim of someone only half interested in my being? Take another step back, deep inhale. First comes negative feelings, then comes negative thoughts.
Small distraction desired, I’d like to listen to the sounds with melody and rhythm. Triggering the switch to play music, I recall that one ear won’t inherit the sounds. Unless I tap, really laboriously, with a knuckle just below the ear. Even then, it won’t work sometimes. Must be the wiring. That hit in the head by a baseball, last year? I never got around to fixing it. Hmm, shame. Good for perspective right now to perceive my flaws.
As the music, from one side, fills my mind, I hear a man hacking up flem in a house across the street, a sound confidently below a critical threshold, however still distressing to witness.
When the Mark at the Union said they weren’t going to represent me, that time with my job and the trouble, Mary didn’t think twice and she went down there and talked to people. She’s a real asset. It’d make sense to go back and apologise. I can’t think about this right now, all rustled up like leaves in the air, there’s no settling on a position.
Rolling my eyes back into my head, feeling the whites dehydrate in the cool air, as the glow of my internal interface lets me configure some map directions. Overlay a map please. Take me to Charlie’s.
Trying to look directly at the map to read the distance only to have it zip away at the same speed. Overlays are irritating. Why’d they make it so I can’t focus on the map. A shrug and a sigh very explicably rise up, I should count myself lucky to have an internal monitor.
Mary hates walking at night, far too unpredictable.
There’s a cat, meow, slinking its way across the road towards me. The quiet night and the bitumen complimenting its silken black hair. Hello Mr Cat, care to smell my hand. Calves and tendons groan as I sit on my heels, offering several fingertips. Oh it’s run away. Watching it go, the brickwork of the building it’s run to is so enjoyable. John Lennon is singing in my ear “ohhh look at all the lonely people”, and there’s a poster in the dark. What does the poster say? Oh…
“ROBOTS DIE IN CAPTIVITY, A REAL SHAME”.
Discomfort and the adjacent desire to feel brave or stoic bubble a thought along. The thought bubbles up to burst and I find myself mutter “interesting”. Reading more with convincing earnestness.
“Three robots died in captivity, the state police announced, after their abuser kept them locked in a reinforced room for 6 months. Their abuser, a 72 year old male who’s published several manifestos, was found dead in the building with an apologia and a…”
An apologia, that’s a funny word. Pulling my hood over my ears and turning away to keep walking. The slight more privacy than I had a moment ago seem enough to bring secure thoughts and feelings. Those bots… a real shame. The photos on the poster lingering on my mind’s peripheral despite best efforts. Not just a shame.
It’ll be good to see Charlie.
Glum now, I can feel it. Looking up the street and Charlie’s apartment building is in sight. Moments later, in the elevator up. It’d only been a small “Ding Ding”, “Hello?”, “Charlie it’s me”, “Come on up”, “Berng”, and I was in the elevator. The smell of nicotine and turmeric seeping from Charlie’s level of apartments a comfort. I get to his door and raise a hand to knock, but he’s pulling it open with a smile already.
“Good to see you Brem”.
“How’ve you been?” asking as entering.
“Yeah great, I’ve been learning how to make beer.”
“Oh nice man, what kind? Stouts?” Stouts are the dark kind.
“Nah just normal beer. I like to make it and feed it to the birds of a night time. The more hoppy beers I’ve made seem to draw more birds. I really like the birds, they flock at my window sometimes, even at times where I’m not going to give them beer. It makes me think they’re not just hanging around for what I can give them.”
“Oh…” this makes sense for Charlie.
“How’ve you been Brem? It’s been ages! What’s got you calling?”
“Well I just had a fight with a girl I’ve been seeing. She’s biological and she said some things that made me want to be around my own people.”
“Ah”, Charlie seems to understand so far.
“And I just couldn’t pretend to sleep next to her for a night after she’d said all that. Lying there for 8 hours without making a sound while I’m internally seething from what she said about me? Too much.”
“You know you shouldn’t do that anyway, just tell her you don’t sleep, and after you cuddle for a bit before she sleeps, go do something else.” Charlie had had a long relationship with a biological man. It didn’t work out, but not because of the human robot thing. He probably knows what he’s talking about.
“It’s just a tricky conversation is all. I feel like I’ve just started to get her trust. She’s fragile. As in, you know, not fragile, but I can’t tell her everything all at once or she’ll feel she doesn’t know me, and the trust will go away.”
“Sounds difficult.” Charlie smiles “What’d Mary say tonight?”
“She said I don’t have free will because she saw one of those Robot Insight clips. So stu… it’s so frustrating.” Charlie is nodding his head, he has some frown lines showing.
“Yep that can happen”, seeing him sat that there I feel an urgency waiting for his next words, “Someone that I liked a lot once told me that we and they can never truly understand each other. Which sucked at the time, because I really wanted to feel close to them, and those words seemed to hold me at a distance. I’ll never truly know a person they were saying to me, and in that moment, I saw them as the one taking that away from me. So, that felt shit. I was delusional though” his gaze direct now, those bronze eyes and the skin around them kind, “no one ever knows anyone really. People, and bots, we’re too complex, and too limited. Anything we think we know about someone is an approximation, I know that now, and that’ll have to be good enough, and I should be content.”
I feel a small resentment towards Charlie blossoming in me like a spring lily, that he’d make my moment of need about his experience. Then like the summer bees, it’s pollinated into a fruit of gratitude,and I feel that he’s quite wise.
I’m concerned.
“I slammed a door on her.” Small anguish that I feel crossing my face.
“Buy her some flowers, tell her you’re sorry. How long have you been seeing each other?”
Well we started dating in February, so that’s…
“About 3 months”.
Charlie rubbed his stubbled chin.
“You won’t get away with acting up in a new relationship.”
He’s right and he’s right and I want to lie down. Thoughts swirling in my mind, if I don’t crystalise them they’ll linger ethereally, maybe forever.
“Can I have a little rant?”
Charlie is smiling and I feel the humdrum of my fingers tap dancing on my face as I prepare my thoughts.
“Why is it like this…” Charlie’s thinly pressed lips opening to start talking… “It’s because we were made in the image of man. They cut all the things that would make us better than human because the Christian Association lobbied for it. God created man in his image, it would be hubris not to create robots in man’s image. Ironic isn’t it…” is a reminder that I’ll have to hedge or he’ll start explaining why things are the way they are.
“Yeah I know why. Sorry, what I mean is, do people really live like this? I know that they must… but it feels insane.” Pulse of vibrance up my back. “Like since we’re artificial, just dreaming here, wouldn’t it be great if you and I could connect, maybe like those animals in the movie Avatar?” Doubt and the vibrance has faded. “I suppose then we’d have to be blue.” Caught for a moment thinking about it, being blue wouldn’t really be the problem. I can see Charlie seriously considering what I’ve said.
“I’m not sure that we’d need to be blue, but there’s other problems with that. We don’t know what that’d do to us, or how that’d play out. We are a complex system, and we live in a complex system.” Charlie smiles and he’s going to say the thing. “We live in a society. And the real benefit of being the same as people is that we’re benign, we can live with autonomy because no one who knows how we work expects us to do anything too weird.”
I nod my head and close my eyes, signalling compliance. Sun Tzu said; pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance. Am I quoting Sun Tzu while talking to my friend? That’s weird. Recapturing the moment from school, my teacher leaning on her hip against the chalk board, red dress with white polka dots. First comes your feelings, she said, and then come your thoughts. Be aware of this, and put space in your mind between thoughts and feelings if you wish to act within your values.
A resigned flush of abrasive tension. “Yeah, I know.”
The red of her dress had been so stark against the black board and white walls.
“I have another thought. What do you think it’s like to dream? You know I can’t imagine, I sometimes wish we’d been allowed to sleep. I guess when they were creating us in humanity’s image they weren’t wearing their glasses. ” Small guilt inside me and I feel Charlie’s momentary frown quickly hidden, confirming he guesses my resentment manifested for a moment. “Reality is different you know, to how people want it to be.”
Charlie is looking at me with pity, and I can feel the forlorn yearning for life to be easy rubbing against my forehead. About an inch above each eye if I’m to focus on it.
“I know, I’m sorry.” It’s easy to forget that Charlie had been struggling with his place in the world as long as I had. “Why haven’t you told Mary about our not being able to sleep do you think?” Something like a quiet bomb has been dropped in my mind. Charlie is asking me the question and I really don’t want to think about it. All things are transient, lets hope this feeling washes away in a moment.
“Hmm.” Hopefully I’ve bought myself a moment. Charlie is looking at me expecting an answer, and such a period of time has passed, and I’ve done such a good job distancing myself from the question, that I’ve forgotten what it was. Where has the question gone. Grasping in my mind at the thread of what it was, something starting with G?
“Uhmm, well…”.
“You know you don’t have to say, what you have with Mary is your business.” Right he’s asking about why I haven’t told Mary about us sleeping. Small feeling of success to be back in the right lane of the conversation.
“It’s because we don’t have enough common ground yet for her to understand what that means. From my perspective, it means very little. From her perspective, right now, it’ll likely be the end of the relationship. The string that joins our lives is too thin, let us build more threads before bringing out the scissors. If you know what I mean.”
—–
Clock says 4:12 PM, not long before it’s time to go home. Not bad for a Monday. Got to scrape that last little bit of energy out before going home. All day it’s “Do this, do that, go here, make this, tell me what this is”, followed by, “you don’t know what you’re doing, do you? Why doesn’t this work? What’s the fucking problem with this thing”. And as these questions are asked of me, they’re expecting me to have an answer. In truth, I don’t have an answer most of the time until I’m speaking it. It’s just, string one word into the next and hope they make sense and it passes for an answer. To advocate for myself a little, sometimes I have the answer as soon as the phone number comes up on my screen. Starts in 0299? “Have you tried the Can’t Remember Your Password button? It’s blue.” A call like that is hardly a distraction, it’s like a fly on a farm. I’m a cow or a horse, and I can do that little shudder thing which makes the fly get off. Brilliant in a lot of ways. Then today I did have someone call, “oh fuck” and “fuck me christ it’s unbelievable”, and it made me worry about them. Sounded mid panic attack honestly. Especially the little mutter “if I can’t get this right I’ll drown myself in the creek”. And do we have mandatory reporting? I’d better ask when the boss is back in. The boss never makes it through a full day. Having kids is a good excuse to knock off mid afternoon and never come back online. So annoying that I can’t ask him. I’ll catch him tomorrow.
Clock says 4:35 PM and the day is practically over! Going to see Mary tonight, she’s said it’s ok if I come over. Charlie was right, the flowers will show I’m sorry we fought. Even though I might be right, it’s the showing that matters sometimes. Besides I do really like her, and what’s conceding some ground matter in the start of a relationship. So what if she thinks I’m not a real person, she hardly knows me! I’ve lived, she can’t know who I am or what I’ve experienced. Who is she to judge me, when she knows so little of what I am and shared so little of my life.
“In gentle shine, of light’s embrace,
We share breath and time,
And a similar face.”
And who else is there that I’d rather spend time with. In my heart I feel I know, I’ll go back to her with whatever I need to make amends, because everything I know leads me to believe I won’t find fulfillment of a similar volume with her.
—-
Fuck it’s been a long time since I closed my eyes. People always talking and talking to me. At me. “Can you solve my problem?” I don’t know, can I?
I’m sensing my social tank is empty. Another sweet mercy, thank you lord. Small scent of coffee on my mind’s peripheral drags my eye to the bench.
Shall I have a sniff?
Slowly standing, a gentle two paces over, eyes locked, I can feel nor think of nothing. Fingers closed on the handle, I pull and the contents show themselves to me. There it is, crinkled creamy metallic, wrangled and drained, tube of gel. Made just for me, my own.
Unscrewing the cap, I feel the warmth of expectation, licking my lips and holding my breathe.
There’s an exorbitant amount of effort going into making this tube yield any coffee. Damn you, yield! A small smidge of black goo, which I rush to my nose to smell before it oxidises. The lightest of winds would’ve blown it away, but I can catch that glorious scent that’s made its way from finger to deep recesses of my nostrils. Delightful.
Though there’s goosebumps on my nave, I say there’s daren’t enough to satisfy me. I must aways to the cafe, to buy some more.
Tom the cafe man has always been so nice to me, with trepidation, I look forward to seeing him again.
