Andy And His Diary - Short Story

 

       "It was not your fault Andy. I was a fool to fall in love with you."  Andy played these words again and again in his head. Poor Andy didn't know what 'love' was. He knew it semantically but was not able to comprehend its actual meaning and how it feels to fall in love. He looked deep into his reflection in the mirror,  hoping to find the answers. All he could see was two cameras that were his windows to the outer world. His metallic skin sparkled as the sunlight from the opposite window fell on it. Picking the leather-bound diary, his worldly possession, he sat on the couch next to the door. He knew its content very well. It had seven photos and a blank page at the end. In the first one, Andy was still a little processor his creator was holding. He was known to Andy as Mr.HNS. A shot, well-built guy who lost his wife at a young age and yet never lost his smile to his very end.  He pulled his thoughts to present as he heard the pendulum clock strike ten in the morning. He picked up his black cowboy hat and gave one last look in the mirror before heading to the graveyard where Vismaya was about to be buried.

         

        It was a short walk from his old apartment to an exclusive graveyard where friends and family of people employed at Alpha-Bot, a leading humanoid designer, were buried. As he entered the premises, he could hear people exchanging greetings, chatting, and expressing condolences. He started walking towards the coffin, to look at her for one last time. Suddenly he was pulled aside by someone he had never seen, or he thought so. "We are not designed to fall in love with our creators. Don't think about it much. Just move on." He couldn't recognize her, but it was his least concern. He paced towards the coffin, hoping no one would distract him again.

When he looked at her, all he could see was a cold body devoid of all expressions. He held her face in his hand, looked at her closed eyes, and recalled what had happened.

             

        It was thirty-six hours ago. Andy was sipping an empty cup of coffee, to imitate humans, and to understand their emotions, at a rooftop coffee bar, enjoying his solitude. Vismaya came walking quietly towards him as if something bad had happened. She held his face and looked deep inside those cold black lenses, hoping that they are not lying. 

"Is there anything you are hiding from me, Andy."

"No. Why would I lie."

"Are you Sure??."

He hesitated for a second.

"Ye...s, yes of course. We humanoids don't lie."

        If he had seen those tears in the corner of her eyes, she would have lived. She walked towards the edge of the roof, facing Andy. She sighed.

"It was not your fault Andy. I was a fool to fall in love with you."     

        Before he could process, she had already jumped down the roof ending her life. Andy raced down the stairs to save her, but he was late.

"Andy... Andy!!"

       

         Andy was back to his senses. He turned to see who was calling him. It was his creator's prodigy, who had grown old. Andy stepped back, allowing her family to continue the rites. Suddenly, some hidden process started to execute, which needed rebooting.

He rushed back home, as there was no charging bunk nearby. Opened the apartment door, sat on the couch and started to interrupt all the process running inside him to make way for a new process which he could not recognize. As he went to sleep he heard his creator's voice.

 "Andy doesn't lie."

He was booted the next day evening. He picked up his diary to look at the last photo. His creator, Mr.HNS, on his ninetieth birthday, was having some fun conversation with his prodigy and Vismaya, who will use his brain for research. Andy turned the page expecting to see the blank page, but it was not.

Dear Andy,

If you are reading this letter, then you have breached the digital mask I had written to hide this. I always told you that you would never lie, hoping you would prove me wrong. But you turned out to be like all of us, hiding our true identity and feelings to win someone. But we lose. I am not angry at you. You believed what I told. It is okay, Andy, to express your feelings. I made sure that you could read this letter only when you lie to someone. I don't know about the circumstances that pushed you to lie, but you lied.

                                                                                                                Yours caring,

                                                                                                                         HNS

         Andy couldn't understand a thing. He was in no position to accept that he could feel. He was sure that someone had written this in his absence and spoiled his diary. He threw the diary out, locked the apartment and went for an evening walk as if nothing had happened. 

image source:- Google