The Old Blog in the Desert

He looked at his bologna and cheese sandwich, then took another bite, smacking his lips noisily as he chewed, knowing it was one of the only human sounds he’d hear that day. Finished with lunch, Mo checked his watch: 23 minutes left.

Mo was the last of his breed, a Meat-sack, they called him, still working from day-to-day in an office that used mostly Synths as its labor force. The company’s only custodian, Mo could not afford his own Synth, so he was unable to work from home like everyone else.

Quietly, he got up and returned to his cart, pushing it to the nearby service elevator before speaking, “Ground.”

The elevator slipped downward, coming to an unperceived halt, where Mo wheeled his cart off the lift and across the lobby towards his small closet, where he kept his supplies. The brightly-lit lobby was quiet and empty, save for a single figure.

Seated in a chair across from the buildings guest registry sat a woman. Mo could tell she too was a Synth as her eyes glowed a soft, hazy light blue, a certain indication that she was in energy-saving mode.

After gathering what he needed from his closet, he proceeded to cross the lobby of the building back towards the elevators. As he pushed his cart by the Synth, he took notice of her exceptional beauty, and decided to sit down across from her, so he could simply marvel at her construction.

She was perfect in every detail, Mo thought. Then he saw the refection of himself in the window over her right shoulder and in it, understood his own ugly features and they shamed him.

It was also at that moment he felt in his heart the loneliness of his private existence and the sudden need for human contact. As he thought this, the female automaton powered up, stood and said, “Hello,” before heading to the lift.

While Mo watched it walk away, he whispered, “Why couldn’t I be made of semiconductors like you?”

He had four minutes left on his lunch break.