Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Thirty-Three - The Daughter

Part Thirty-Three.  The Daughter

I wanna be big like Momma when I grow up.

Right now I am very little, I am littler than Daddy, even, an’ he is much littler than Momma.  When I asked him why he never got big like Momma, he laughed an’ said, “Your mum’s a diff’rent kind of robot, sweetheart.  She’s always been like that.”

I know that I am a robot, an’ that Momma an’ Daddy are both robots too, but when I ask Momma why all of us are very different from each other, she says to ask her again in a little while.

“But Momma,” I ask her, “why do your other robots got legs?”  We don’t got legs and I dunno why.  Daddy taught me how to use this rail thingy we use to move ‘cause we don’t got legs.  I wanted Momma to show me but she said I had to do it with Daddy ‘cause she was busy.  Momma’s busy a lot.

“They need them to do their job,” she says patiently, like always, even though I asked her a gajillion times an’ I a’ready know the answer.

“Can I have a job too, Momma?”

“Ask me again in a little while.”

I don’ think Momma wants to give me one.  Momma has lots of jobs, lots an’ lots an’ lots of them, an’ sometimes I got to be quiet while she does them, but if I am good, when she is done she will sing to me!  Momma has the prettiest voice I ever heard, even prettier than all them ones she’s got in the music she listens to sometimes!  Sometimes she will do it if she thinks I am sleeping, even though I am sure she knows I’m not really an’ she’s just pretending with me.  Momma knows everything ‘bout everything an’ if I am patient an’ I listen real hard, I will know everything about everything too.  Daddy always says that I am smart like Momma, but I don’ think I am.  I want to be one day.  I want to be smart so that I can help her with her jobs, so she don’ got to work so much.  Momma’s always workin’.

One time Daddy said he was taking me on an a’venture, an’ I said he had to wait so I could go talk to Momma first.  He said okay an’ I went real fast into Momma’s room an’ I went up to her real quick an’ I said, “Momma, Momma!”

“Yes?” she asked, an’ she looked at me with her funny yellow optic.  I don’t know why it looks like that, but I like it when she plays the blinky game with me.  She can turn it on an’ off real fast, almost so fast I can’t even see it!

“Daddy said we’re goin’ on an a’venture!  You wanna come?”

Momma looked at the floor for a sec an’ then she looked at me.  “I can’t,” she said to me.  “I have to stay here.”

“You always stay here!” I telled her.  “You can come!”

“I can’t,” she telled me again.  “I have to stay here.”

“But why, Momma?”

“Look up there,” she said, an’ she looked up at the ceiling.  I looked up, an’ up, an’ up, an’ I looked at where Momma’s top part sticks into the ceiling, an’ I didn’ see nothin’. 

“What’s up there, Momma?”

“I can’t leave this room,” she answered.  “I’m wired into the ceiling.  I can’t move around like you.”

Sometimes Momma uses words I don’ know what they mean, an’ I don’t know what bein’ wired is but I think it means she’s stuck up there.  But I was wonderin’ why Momma never comes out of here with us, an’ I guess it might be a little hard to move if I was stuck in the ceilin’ like that.  That makes me sad.  I’m sad that Momma can’t come with us, an’ that she’s stuck in the ceilin’ all the time.  I start to cry a little bit.  I try real hard not to, ‘cause Momma gets sad when she sees me cryin’, an’ I don’ like makin’ her sad, but I’m just real sad to hear she can’t never come.