🦺 The Droids You are Looking For

Welcome to the eighteenth edition of Safe For Work. The theme for May is communication and connectivity. Today a story inspired by the robots and droids of Star Wars.

A podcast was planned, but that was not ambitious enough 😉 So production of turning these short stories into short films has begun. Let us know in the comments if this is one you want to see as a film.

There is a swing set in the playground at the corner of 5th and Vine. It is swinging back and forth. It is being pushed. It is a lovely afternoon, sunny. 

There is no rusty squeaking. The chains and the hinges are regularly oiled-- and replaced, when they need it. The seat of the swingset itself has never needed replacing. It has not had to carry any weight in a very long time. The metal hands pushing it back and forth, over and over, empty, have only worn away very slightly at the edge of the rubber. Like fingerprints, maybe. Or the warping of an old banister after years and years of young children springing off of it on their way up or down the stairs. 

All the stairs in all the houses are perfectly clean and kept. None of the banisters are warped. All the lawns are mowed to precisely an inch-and-a-half in length. All of them are a perfect Kentucky Derby green because they are consistently watered and treated with the correct combinations of pesticides and fertilizers and other chemicals to maintain optimal soil moisture and pH. 

There hasn’t been a car-crash in… how long? Three-hundred years?

It depends on who you ask. 

There is no one to ask. 

If you were to ask the machine pushing the empty swingset, it would tell you that there has never been a car-crash at all. From the moment of its manufacture on April 19th, 2102, through the truck-ride from the factory to the local distribution center, and from there to the Fitchburg residence at 119 Paymerry Lane, there were no car-crashes, or indeed any traffic hiccups of any kind. There were certainly no car-crashes in the living-room of the house every morning, as the Unit unplugged itself from its charging-station and strode smoothly up the stairs to Jessica Fitchburg’s bedroom, to wake her up, supervise her brushing her teeth and getting dressed, and taking her downstairs to breakfast. There were no crashes, either, on the drive to school-- or at least none involving the car with Jessica Fitchburg in it-- not when she was five years old or six years old or seven years old or eight years old or nine years old or ten years old. Crashes involving other cars, perhaps, but this Unit, pushing the swingset now, had never noticed them. Its entire focus had been on the game of chopsticks or rock-paper-scissors with Jessica in the backseat of the car, trying to predict the optimal moves to make in whatever game-- not to always win, and not to always lose, but to always make her feel like she could win, and always to make her smile. It was a strange and subtle science. Sometimes, it wasn’t even anything next to science. Sometimes, Jessica just did this or that and even she couldn’t have told you why. Sometimes, she drew little circles on the Unit’s forearm with her fingertip, or a red marker from her backpack. Sometimes she said things, or poked at things, or pointed at things without making any sense at all. 

Other Units would give you different answers, if you were to ask. The Unit at 5658 North Gruman Terrace, six miles from the Fitchburg residence, would tell you that the last car-crash occurred two-hundred-ninety-three years ago, four months, one week, and four days, at 5:14 PM, when Robert Young, in the final stages of the infection-- in full-fevered delirium-- stepped out into the road faster than the automatic response system in the oncoming car could react to, causing the car to both crash into Mr. Young, and skid out sideways into a nearby tree, severely injuring the elderly resident of 5658 North Gruman Terrace, herself only the medium stage of infection. The Unit removed her body from the wreckage and carried it the rest of the way to City Hospital, both to have her injuries seen to, and to get her enrolled in the experimental treatment program that had been running, which was later determined to have been entirely ineffective. 

The Units running the Emergency Department at City Hospital would tell you that car crashes, even with nearly the entire road automated, still happen at a rate of roughly three per month, and prior to January 16, 2110, when they were happening at a rate closer to roughly ten per day due to people doing things that made no sense at all, they accounted for at peak twenty percent of all emergency-room visits, dropping to less than one percent right before the end. 

Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the Unit at the former Fitchburg residence unplugs itself from its charging station shortly after sunrise and strides smoothly up the stairs to the bedroom of Jessica Fitchburg, where it stands for twenty minutes in front of the empty bed, repeatedly urging her to get up-- she doesn’t want to be late for school. Her parents are counting on her to be a good girl and work hard. After that, it goes back down the stairs and stands in front of the empty breakfast table, urging Jessica not to take too long eating the nice breakfast her mother made for her. And don’t forget to pack her homework in her bookbag. 

The Unit sits alone in the car, playing rock-paper-scissors and chopsticks with the air as the automatic driving system guides the vehicle to the neighborhood school, alongside all the other empty cars navigating automatically to empty places. The unit takes the car to the grocery-store to gather ingredients for the week, or goes home to do the laundry or vacuum the carpets or clear out all of last week’s rotting, unused ingredients from the fridge. 

On Saturdays, after coming downstairs from Jessica’s room and waiting-- more patiently than during the week-- for breakfast, the Unit takes the car to the corner of 5th and Vine, has it park in the little lot next to the playground. It holds open the door, and then the gate, and then it walks over to the swingset. The swings have always been Jessica’s favorite.

It stands there and it begins to push. 

If you were to ask the Unit pushing the empty swingset, and if it were somehow able to answer in that way that humans answer, without making any sense at all, it would tell you that the entire world is a car-crash-- every minute of every day.

We have begun to turn these short science fiction stories into films. The first one will release this week.

See you next week as we continue to explore communications and connectivity, especially the evolution of mobile. Stay safe.