Most of the books on the shelves were fat and serious-looking, and I wanted something small and easy, so I picked out the littlest book I could find and took it back to my cot and started reading. It was pretty rough going at first. Although the sentences were short and the words not obscure, I was still a novice at sounding things out, and the English language is not one given to consistency or even common sense. I had to twist and turn a lot of the words in my head until they seemed to work in the overall context, and even then I'm sure I got a lot of them wrong. I skipped over many words so I thought I probably made a mess of the story, but when much later on I read it again I found I had basically understood it all.
It was a sad story, about a poor young girl who had nobody to depend on and possessed literally nothing. She moved from a farm to a big city and got herself a lousy job which she was terrible at, and a lousy living situation with nasty roommates, and a lousy best friend who eventually betrayed her, and a lousy boyfriend who was always mean to her, and then the ending was both heartbreaking and joyful. It's difficult to describe but despite everything, despite her poverty and her ignorance and her incompetence and the faithlessness and cruelty of her world, this young woman was full of a love for life and a sense of hope, most of all she was full of infinite hope. I don't mind saying that I cried as I read, I cried a lot, so much so that even Josef took notice of me and said,
"What's the matter with you, Candles? Are you feeling okay? Do you need something? Water?"
I shook my head 'no'.
"You don't ever need water, do you?" he asked.
"I don't require food or drink," I told him, "but I can absorb liquids. It's how they filled my brain."
"Filled your brain? What does that mean?" he asked.
"We were raised on Nurture Smoothies," I explained. "It was our brain food."
I couldn't tell him more than that because I wasn't sure I understood it myself.
"I like smoothies," was his response before getting back to ignoring me and struggling with his work. The interlude broke his quiet spell, though, and he began voicing his frustrations more and more loudly.
"This whole thing is shit," he declared. "I fucking hate it. They give you this goo and this stupid fucking booklet written in fucking Chinese or something. None of the drawings match anything at all and the instructions are garbage."
He flung the booklet he was holding across the room, where it fluttered softly onto a pile of boxes against the wall. I got up and walked over, picked it up and started leafing through it.
"If it makes any sense to you," he sighed, "let me know. I'm done with this shit."
At that he gave a push to the tray containing the gray mass, which rolled and flopped about but failed to come oozing out over the side onto the workbench, which was probably a good thing.
"It's supposed to be a rabbit," I mumbled as I flipped through the pages.
"Yeah, some fucking bunny," Josef swore as he came out from behind the workbench and headed towards me.
"You see what I mean?" he asked as he drew close. "That's supposed to tell you how to do it."
"I wouldn't know where to start," I confessed, handing the booklet over to him.
"The thing is," he said, now standing directly in front of me, "I suck at this stuff. I really do, and I always have. Mom always wants me to be what they call a 'maker' but I can't make shit. I can hardly peel a fucking orange, but she's all the time going 'you can do it', and 'you better damn well do it' and fuck, what Marta wants Marta gets, you know how she is."
"I don't really know her," I said, but he wasn't listening. He was still narrating his point of view.
"She's all over that June Lee, cozying up to her just because of who she is, and Stan and all of that. Oh, Marta gets what she wants all right. She always gets what she wants, but not with me. Never with me. I'm never going to be good enough, am I? Never going to be what she wants me to be. Oh well. That's life, isn't it? You bet it is. Fuck it all."
And with that he flipped the booklet onto the floor, let out a big sigh and left the room. I had no idea how long he would be gone for, or when Marta would return, so there I was, stuck in there, not wanting to risk getting caught with the computer, wondering how the hell I was going to get out of that place and away from those people.
YOU ARE READING
How My Brain Ended Up Inside This Box
Science Fiction"When I was born I was so small I was mistaken for a french fry. I was never an ordinary child. My best friend was a seagull. I was also illegal. Artificially intelligent people like me had been banned ever since that thing with the Twelve Elevens...
