Friday, 8/6/10 - Wearing Out

His pants show a darkened patch that runs down the length of his legs. The floor beneath him is marked with small puddles. Some are perfectly round on the stone floor's highly polished surface. Others, like fingers, point accusingly at him as he moves.

His age is evident in his awkward movements. He looks through the window at all that is living and growing outside then brings his attention back inside this house. This house. He once cared for this house, now this house cares for him.



He knows that he will not be here much longer. The thought of losing what little life he has left terrifies him, so he keeps walking.

"If I keep moving," he thinks, "and I am still working, maybe - just maybe - they won't terminate me." He knows the law. He has lived beyond his usefulness. They will come for him soon, maybe even today, because when you get as old as he is, they recall you and strip you of anything that still functions.

He wonders if terminating himself might not be a better choice. But, like him, the thought is short-lived. He is incapable of suicide.

He searches his memory and finds what he has always known, that he is an android. He doesn't feel like an android; other androids would not hesitate to return their working parts for redistribution to newer or more functional units.

Like all androids, he can think. But, because he possesses an Emotional Processing Unit, he can simulate human emotions. He was not given the mechanics to laugh or to cry but he can feel joy and sorrow.

Now, faced with his own death, he feels sorrow and wishes that he could cry. He thinks about how it will feel to have the power removed from his circuits. Will his memory be active while the rest of his mechanics are shutting down?

His memory circuits are good and he is confident that they will reuse them in another unit but he fears that they will wipe his experiences first. Without them, all that he is will be gone.

"This is me," he yells down the empty hallway, his circuits automatically calculating the distance between himself and the far end by sampling the delay between the creation of each sound and its returning echo.

"Another piece of useless information," he thinks turning left down an adjoining corridor, hoping, praying that today will not be the day.