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Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 16
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See you later, alligator.
“It’s been damn near two years now. She’s gotten no better, just worse! Why waste time and money, when I can just get rid of her?”
It saddened me to hear these things. I should be used to them by now, but I’m just not. I was forced to sit in a bed, in an empty room, and listen to everyone else live life without me. I wonder if they know I can hear them. Do they think I’m deaf, too?
I was bought by the Anderson family nearly two years ago, to serve as the bodyguard slash babysitter for the youngest member of the house, a boy by the name of Jacob. Jacob is a short, cheery faced boy with short brown hair and large blue eyes. Unless he was at school, Jacob always wore a propeller hat. But that propeller hat was broken. The propeller never propelled. It was just stuck there. Kind of like me. But if I’m like that propeller hat, and they’re trying to get rid of me, won’t they get rid of the hat, too?
In case you haven’t picked up on it, I’m an android. A broken one, at that. I remember when I was first introduced to the Andersons. I was perfect.
It had been a year. Two months into the new year, I was no longer perfect. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but it did. I remember watching Jacob play soccer with his siblings. It was two-against-one; Jacob figured he could take both of them on by himself, despite the fact that he was youngest and smallest. I don’t remember who was winning. I remember getting up from my seat on the porch to get everyone something to drink. I don’t remember if I ever made it as far as the front door.
When I woke up, I was in a bed. I tried to get up, but my legs just wouldn’t work.
A couple of weeks later, I lost my eyesight. All I had left for me was my mouth, until I lost that too.
Now I have nothing. I really am useless. I can hear, and I can move from the waist up. But what good is any of that, when you are an android? As an android, I’m supposed to be able to see at a 360° angle, night vision included. I’m supposed to move at an exceptional speed. Now, I’m nothing.
“See, this is why I just stick to the old-fashioned stuff..” said Donovan, the man of the house, with a heavy sigh. I tried to imagine him saying that. It was unsurprisingly easily. Donovan was a balding man with a beer belly and tired-looking eyes. He did like old-fashioned things, despite the year being 2148, and old-fashioned things being near impossible to find.
“Donovan, you can’t just kill her..” said Sarah, Donovan’s wife. She was a petite woman who usually had a fretting air about her. I don’t know why she bothered fighting for me; the topic of me has been discussed so many times, I’ve lost all hope of living.
“I’m not killing anyone. I’m just taking out the life source, the brain chip, or whatever. She’s an android. I can’t believe you could consider that killing.”
“Well, I do. And Jacob will, if no one else.”
“Don’t bring Jacob into this.”
“Jacob is the only reason I’m going to bother arguing with you. Don’t do this to him. He loves Victory, you know that.”
“He’ll get over it..”
“And if he doesn’t?” replied Sarah. There was silence. Then she spoke again. “You claim to hate wasting money. Wouldn’t killing her be doing that?”
“No,” replied Donovan, “a waste would be for me to keep getting repairs. She’s just taking up space. Look, on a long enough timeline, the survival rate of everyone drops to zero. The same goes for Victory, even if she is an android. And don’t give me that ‘she might get better’ bullshit. It’s been a year, and I haven’t seen any indication of this ‘getting better’.”
There was more silence. All around me was a very dimmed orange. This was odd. Usually, I see nothing but black, if that counts at seeing. I heard footsteps and saw two large grey blobs coming towards me, taking the form of a man and a woman, if only very slightly. I heard the door open wider with a creak. More dim orange light. The same blobs.
Am I seeing something? ‘No indication of this getting better’? I wish he knew.
“Goodnight, Victory,” I heard the two blobs say in unison before closing the door again and leaving me in nothing but blackness. I wondered if I had gone blind again or if it was just dark.
“Tomorrow,” I heard Donovan say, “I’m doing it tomorrow. At dawn, so Jacob won’t be up.”
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I was awakened with a shove and a yell. “Victory! Wake up! Daddy’s gonna kill you!”
I sat up in the bed. First, all was grey, and then a pale yellow right filled my eyes. Upon looking down, I saw what looked like a boy. I couldn’t make out anything except for the red shirt he was wearing, and the colorful propeller hat. I tried to find the little wings on top of the hat, the wings that were somehow jammed, the wings that no longer worked. My sight was not well enough for me to make them out.
“Hurry up! Get up! Daddy’s gonna get you! We gotta run away!” Jacob tugged on my arm. Of course, I couldn’t go anywhere. I could only sit there, and listen to Jacob beg me to get out of bed because “Daddy’s gonna kill me!”
I heard heavy footsteps, then saw a blurred Donovan come into the room. I saw him much better now than I had the night before. “Damnit, boy… you shouldn’t even be up.” Following shortly after his statement was wife, who appeared in the doorway silently. “Jacob..” she pleaded, “Go back to bed. It has to be done.”
No, it doesn’t! I’m better now! I can see! I screamed in my head.Of course, no words came out.
I found it slightly amusing, how people think about the oddest things right before they die. I see it all the time in movies the kids watch. Right before someone dies, the person says something peaceful and completely unrelated to his or her death. Well, what I was thinking about was related. I was thinking about talking.
There was something Jacob always told me, right before he left to go somewhere, usually school.
“See ya later, alligator.”
I didn’t really like the phrase because I didn’t like being compared to an animal, especially not one as fat or as mean as an alligator. Never once did I reply “In a while, crocodile.” I would simply wave back. Even after I lost my legs and my sight, he said that same phrase. I thought about telling him how much I hated it, but I spared him the cold, sarcastic words that would spill out of my mouth. I just sucked it in and put up with it.
Now that I think about it, I miss that phrase. After I stopped talking, Jacob still said it, but I hated not being able to reply. I remembered sitting in bed some nights, trying to move my mouth the way I imagined I was supposed to, to make the words come out. They never did.
Donovan walked behind me. I knew what was next, so I didn’t dare turn around. Jacob shoved his face into my stomach. I felt cold tears, mucus, and saliva seeping through my shirt. I hated it. “No..” he said sadly through my stomach, “Tell him no, Vic..”
I thought again about that alligator saying, and how I hated it so much, but longed to say it so baldy once I could no longer talk. I still remember trying to say it. I remember nothing coming out. I tried to say it now. I doubt anything would come out. I didn’t hear anything. The look on Jacob’s face when he removed it from my stomach told it all. The way Donovan’s hands let go of the back of my head, and the way Sarah raised a hand over her mouth and her eyes widened told it, too. All those signs made it seem obvious that I said it.
But I still didn’t believe that the words “See you later, alligator” came out of my mouth.
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