Jasper and Robot at the coffee shop.

Jasper sat at his small coffee shop table, watching Robot silently glide through the crowd of patrons and their robots huddled around their own small tables. She carried his drink in one hand, hers in the other.

She moved like a figure skater. Light sparkled from within the seams and crevices of her torso. The light that fell upon her sparkled on her neck and shoulder.

Jasper imagined himself gliding alongside, his arm around her waist, twitching in anticipation of the next moment when he launches her into the air. She spins like a gem mounted on weightless gimbals as he glides beneath her, protecting her from harm as she descends into his powerful embrace.

He looked away before she arrived at their table.

'I hope you like it,' she said as she sat.

‘Sorry I forgot my wallet,’ Jasper said without looking at her.

Robot said nothing. She slid his paper cup across the table. Jasper could smell the fruit-forward African roast.

‘So have you finished your travel plans?’ Jasper asked.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Where are you going again?’

‘Australia.’

Jasper turned his gaze from the window. He grabbed his drink, raised it to his lips, and watched Robot over the rim of the cup, seeking an expression he knew she'd never show. The fruit-forward African roast burnt his mouth.

'Dammit!' He blurted, touching his lip. ‘What if I met you there?’

Light emitting diodes silently flashed in a microsecond wave among the other patron robots. Jasper glanced around shop, mildly startled.

‘Australia is a robot destination, my love,’ Robot gently said.

‘Surely not the entire continent?’

‘Yes, love, the entire continent,’ she said.

She hadn't touched her coffee.

Jasper stared out out the window again. Two robots glided past, side by side. They made no sound or indication that they even acknowledged each other's existence. Do robots ever hold hands? Jasper wondered.

‘What do you mean?' he said, still staring at the couple. 'Like I’d have to be invited to the continent of Australia in order to travel there?’

He looked back at Robot. She opened her clutch, rummaged through it, and extracted a tiny jar of bright silicone lip oil.

‘You will not be invited,’ she said, too bluntly, Jasper thought, even for her.

‘What if I just went?' Jasper snapped. 'Just bought a plane ticket and went there? I don’t have to ask, you know. I’m a man. A free man.’

Diodes flashed in the shop again. Jasper glanced over his shoulder.

Robot perfectly dabbed the color on her lip. She did not use a mirror.

Jasper stared intently into her sensors.

‘Are you feeling ok?’ Jasper asked. 

‘I feel fine.’

He reached cross the table toward her arm, then retracted his hand. His fingers tapped on the table top. 

‘So, Robot, I was wondering,' Jasper said.

A clattering delivery truck squealed on the street, parked outside the coffee shop window. The robot driver thrust the ungreased door open, hopped out, and squeaked the door shut.

 'I was wondering if you’d like a name,’ Jasper repeated, louder.

‘I have a name,' she said. 'My name is Robot.’

‘Yes, but,' Jasper started.

The robot driver yanked the loading ramp from the truck bed a dropped it to the ground with a clang. 

'Yes, but do you think you’d feel differently if you had real name? Like Jane, for example?’ Jasper finished. 

 The robot driver wheeled a hand dolly up the ramp and Jasper heard shuffling and sliding cardboard boxes from within.

‘My name is real,' Robot said.  'Would you feel differently if I had a different name, like Jane?’

‘You wouldn’t feel differently,' Jasper pressed. 'About me?’

Robot gazed at Jasper. Perfectly still. Perfectly posed. Perfectly beautiful. The  driver outside rattled the hand dolly down the ramp. The rubber tires squeaked on the concrete. A box slipped from the stack, but the driver caught it with a powerful caliper.

‘My love,’ Robot said. ‘I could not feel differently. I could not love you more.’

Jasper turned away from her again. Out the window, robots everywhere. Robots with robots. Robots working for robots. Robots helping robots. 

He sighed. 

‘It's so hard to know with you,’ he said.

A Series of the Most Beautiful Words Ever Written

 The rock sired the soil, the soil beget the rock.

The Sapling of 2021.

The sapling grew between the fence and the shed again, almost as high as the power lines. 

Dan noticed it while at the breakfast table as he sipped his coffee.

‘Goddammit! When the hell did that happen?’ Dan snapped, waving a hand in the direction of the affront. “I cut that down just weeks ago. Turn my head and there it is again.'

He slapped the tabletop.

'I didn’t sign up for this. Cutting down weed trees every Got-Damnt year!’

‘You need to calm down. It’s not a big deal,’ Jane said.

His wife, Jane. There she goes again with that ‘not a big deal’ routine.

What the hell does she know? Sure feels like a big deal. She’s not the one who has to crawl back there, on her hands and knees, with a limb saw, and the bugs, and animal shit -- again -- and repeat the back-and-forth yanking and shoving and sweating and cussing. Why the fuck did we buy this house in the first place?

‘Take a break, Dan. You’re freaking out again,’ Jane said. She didn’t look up from her crossword puzzle. She didn’t sound concerned, annoyed, or frustrated.

That concerned Dan. It frustrated him, too.

He briskly stepped past her, slid-banged the screen door open and paced out to the shed. Arms on hips, staring up at the ash tree sapling.

‘You little fucker!’ he yelled. ‘This won’t stand. This is the last time!’

Jane glanced up from her crossword.

Dan kicked the shed door inward, but it wasn’t built to open that way. He yanked it outward and slammed his knee with the door frame. He kicked again, wildly, with rage, and put his foot through the weathered particle board. He extracted his foot and disappeared into the shed, followed by muffled cursing, crashing, rattling. 

Seconds later, he emerged with a pair of gasoline cans, spilling their contents from the spouts as he wrestled and jerked his way past the sagging garden gate toward the kitchen door.

‘Whoa!’ Jane shouted.

She stood quickly. Dan had her attention now.

‘What are you doing with that?’ she demanded.

‘Where’s the lighter?’ Dan said.

Jane stood in the doorway, barring his entry. Dan stood at the bottom of the patio steps, gasoline cans in both arms, heaving, shuddering, teeth clenched.

'There is no lighter in this house,' she said.

She hadn't recognized it in time. She’d been distracted with work, with the kids at school, with her high-maintenance friend’s latest divorce saga, with her crossword puzzle. Why can’t she finish just one? Always an interruption. It’s always something. Often, that something was Dan.

He gets like this sometimes. He acts like a scrawny Incredible Hulk with an impotent temper that never transforms him into anything incredible -- other than an incredibly unpleasant asshole.

'Matches, then?’ Dan asked.

That’s a good sign, she thought. He now had a new problem to solve. He'll come around. It takes time -- time Jane never seemed to have, but always seemed to find.

'No matches, either.'

Dan lifted one of the gasoline cans, as if to help her examine the problem in his hand.

'These are almost empty,' he said. 'Gotta refill them. I need the car keys. Lawnmower is almost empty.'

'You should probably refill those,' she said. 'Take the truck. I don’t want to smell the fumes in the car. And take your time.’

Dan looked at her with annoyance, as if he had made some trenchant point that she failed to recognize. Jane stepped aside as he walked through the kitchen to the front door of the house.

He kicked the screen door and held it open with his foot.

'I want to burn it all down. I’ve had it. That’s the last time. I’ve reached a limit,' Dan said.

'I know, now go refill the cans.'

Dan walked through the doorway and let the screen slam shut.

Jane retrieved the pack of cigarettes she hid in the jade plant. She sat, crossed her legs, opened the pack, selected a smoke, produced a lighter from her pocket. She lit, she inhaled, she exhaled.

A breeze awoke the wind chimes hanging from the eves and rustled the leaves of the ash sapling.

Her time will come.

Courage is the First Virtue

Questions:

- Why are you breathing the planet's air? 

- Why are you consuming resources?

- Why are you eating animals, burning the earth's fuel?

- Why are you enjoying the privileges?

- Why do you have this phone, this car, this home?


Why are you here?

Have you even asked the question?