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"I don't get it," I blurted out in frustration, crossing my arms across my chest with a huff. Mirai and Barrett exchanged glances before Mirai conveniently found another customer to tend to, but not before she rolled her eyes and tossed her hair. The man looked nervous, not lifting his eyes to fully meet mine, or where they would be if he could see them. With my irritation going unchecked, I clenched the fish food in my left hand and felt the give of the container just as Barrett no doubt heard it. His large brown eyes widened at the sound, flickering up at me with an expression of shock. Sighing heavily I dropped the broken fish food into my basket of things to purchase. This whole idea was a mistake although the only person I had to blame was myself.
It hadn't occurred to me that dating an android would make me act less human. White was someone who was striving to be more human with every step he took. So far the progress was promising, when I wasn't saving Retro from Jeffrey's mischevious grasp or putting out a fire in the basement where I had set up a small mechanic's station for White's schooling, or.....well, the list of things that had happened was quite long. But progress was progress! And I cherished the little things, such as when White first laughed at a joke in the comics of the newspaper because he thought it was genuinely amusing and not because he knew he was supposed to laugh.
But as the months have gone by, I realized that he was not the only one learning. I was learning many things about the mechanical child culture that I never would have on my own. I had always thought of it as him showing me how to accept myself. I hadn't thought that in doing so, I was becoming less human. Not to say in a bad way, or anything of the sort. It had hit me a few days ago that there was nothing organic in my apartment other than what was inside my own body. It had been quite some time since I had nurtured anything to grow. There had once been potted plants on my windowsills and I had even owned a fish for quite some time. The only indication that any of that had existed were the empty pots that served as decoration and the empty fishbowl. I had taken the fishbowl in my hands absently one day, trying to imagine how it felt to hold a living, breathing and growing thing.
Quickly I realized that those concepts alone were almost foreign to me. It was a scary thing to think about. True, I had been longing to put my human life behind and embrace this new one for years. Was it happening too soon, too quickly, or was it a wish I had never truly wanted?
So without much thought Retrostacja and I left Aekea, flashing my visa at the gate as I left. There had been an article in the paper a few weeks back about the shop Phin Phang opening its doors once more. Apparently there had been an issue with zombie fish that could not die, and for that reason they had to close and hunt down each one of them in the thousands of aquariums all over Gaia. The fact that they were rejoicing their grand re-opening had caught my eye.
I had thought it was a good idea, owning an aquarium that would eventually pay me back with its peculiar way of producing gold. It would teach me to nuture, to feel pride in knowing I had an impact on a living thing. But the whole thing was an impulse buy, and already I was beginning to feel buyer's remorse.
Looking up from the receipt I had just been handed, Mirai seemed to be able to read my thoughts before I could even say anything. Pointing towards a large sign above the counter, the smirk on her face was anything but apologetic.
"NO REFUNDS"
My gaze flickered back to the thin paper in my hand, looking up and down the list of things I had just bought.
Why didn't I just buy a stupid plant?
 PQ and Retrostacja · Wed May 18, 2011 @ 05:03am · 0 Comments |
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