Writing Challenge

Project 0720

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

RDP Tuesday: SENTIENT

” Talk to me, ” I said to to my Robot who was standing at my desk.

My Robot looked like a dog with no head to speak of and it moved like a cat when it ran up and down the stairs to the attic where I  work. The factory painted him brown and called it “Project  0720″

It backed away from me and then it stepped forward. Then it sat, the way a dog will when it can’t quite make out what you want. As I just mentioned, it has no head so it had no head to speak of to tilt. But my Robot was sitting because that is what this model does when you give it a bad command.

” Oh right, ” I pulled my laptop forward and tapped the screen. My dog’s face, Hamish the  Chocolate Lab I grew up and old  with and died so many years ago –  smiled back at me and was there for just a second.  I smiled back and then my Robot’s command page loaded. ” Talk to me. ” I repeated sharply and clearly the way the  instructions  said to talk to ” The  0720 ” while you were ‘teaching it’.

My Robot dog stood and it repeated in a Scottish accent  because  it’s original programmer was a Doctor Who Fan with a sense of humor. ” Talk to me.”

You should probably know, I still have problems setting the alarm clock on my phone, I’m not what you would call ‘tech savy. ‘ Two of my co-workers at The Lab had taught their Canine Robots to talk and interact with their Home Computer systems but I had no luck so far.  I couldn’t even get it to bark.

” Say something. ” I told it.

” Say something. ” it repeated.

Awesome, I had a million dollar parrot that looked like a dog and moved like a cat and was actually designed to go on Missions to places like Titan and Mars to accompany a robot crew and I couldn’t get it to do anything except run around my house when any door bell in a 10 mile radius of my house rang, stare out the windows when people walked by and  and chase the birds out of the trees.

That’s right, I somehow screwed up it’s brain and my Robot Dog was next to useless. In case you’re wondering it’s designed to get hit by Solar Flares, could be programmed to co-pilot a Space Ship  and look at what I did to it.

” Listen to me. ” I said slowly. ” Say something. ”

It sat and then it  stood.  ” Say something.”

I was about to power my Robot Dog down when it said,, ” Say something. Listen to me. Talk to me. Say something. ”

I was frustrated. These Robots were designed to learn and follow commands and  I hadn’t even got out of Module One yet.” What do you want me to say? ” I asked it.

My Robot dog stepped forward. It did not sit, but if it had a head I think he would have pushed it forward the way Hamish used to do when he was asking for attention.

” What is my name. ”

Send Brenda More Life

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

It’s Friday and I think it’s time to bust out the funnies!

This obituary was written by an AI and I am IN AWE:

Walmart hates Science.

If you are sitting on a City council that does not allow people to have seven foot tall werewolf statues in their front yard all I can say is- YOU ARE WHAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA!

The Big Question

/ animar64 / 1 Comment

WordPress Daily Prompters are wondering: How important is spirituality in your life?

Field with Young Trees in the Foreground
Piet Mondrianc. 1907

If it weren’t for Gods and Devils,

if I lived a life where I didn’t believe in a Heaven or Hell, as a person I would be as colorless as a McDonald’s Happy Meal Box that your kids drop in the backseat floor of your car and ‘forget’ to throw away.

Suffice it to say that my  faith in the Heavens and The Hell where spirits go to meet their reward is iron clad. You can’t reason me away from my beliefs.

I am a true believer.

Photographer Unknown

You see, if I hadn’t feasted on the stories in the Bible about the Horseman Of the Apocalypse, if I had not read word for word and taken in the images of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and seen in my mind’s eye Lot’s wife being turned into salt, heard the cries of the people begging for their lives as Noah sailed away and left them to drown and watched in one nightmare after another as Caine murdered his own brother in cold blood under the watchful eye of an angry God and then LIED to that God about what he had done,  then I would probably not be the writer I am today.

I should probably add here that I have absolutely  taken seriously and learned stories from many religions and other belief systems.

My reason for this respect in Spirituality is  pure in it’s simplicity: Religions and spirituality bring a lot of positive into the world- on the other hand they bring along a lot of horror stories that are unsurpassed. Most of them were the birth place of horrific demons, monsters and twisted human souls that most horror writers, to this day riff on.

Adam Burke: Ghosts of the Anthropocene

I like being a writer. I like it alot and I consider my love of writing to be a gift from Heaven and I am grateful…  of course at other times I do wonder  if that might not be entirely true and as it stands I am good with that.

Like I said.

I am a True Believer.

Lucifer by Franz von Stuck

For Flashback Friday: The Window Upstairs

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

First Published on June, 23-2021

Reprinted for Fandango’s Flashback Friday

Vilhelm Hammershøi

I wanted to tell you a story about the empty rooms in the house next door to where I live.

I wanted to tell you the name of the daughter who did unthinkable things to her family and when the police arrested her, they asked her why she did those awful deeds and then made her family dinner, like always, and set the table with fresh linens, flowers from the garden out back and why did set the table with  her mother’s best bone china and why did she put on her prettiest dress and then take her seat and ate her meal- like always.

She had peach cobbler for dessert.

I wanted to tell you that the Devil made her do it. that her boyfriend talked her into it that there was something wrong with her brain and that someone did unspeakable things to her as a child and that is why she did those terrible things.

But none of that was true. She was as normal and predictable as you or the lady who made you coffee at the Espresso stand this morning. It’s a mystery to us all  where the idea to murder her entire family came from.

I can tell you she used to look out of the window on the top floor of her house and from her floor she could look down into my backyard. She used to watch me garden late at night. She used to watch me dig and turn the earth with deadly efficiency and grim determination.

Sometimes she waved at me and sometimes I waved back.

And sometimes she just watched me dig.