Category: FlashFic

The old gentleman peered out of the window. At first he saw nothing, the light of the room overpowered the soft luminescence of the street lamps outside. “Cassandra, dim the lights.”

“Dimming the lights,” the computer responded. The view outside improved as the interior lights dimmed. He smiled.

The view was a simple one. A pair of lamps illuminated the street down below. He remembered, when he and Florence had first moved in, he had insisted that the lamps be changed to reflect the period in which the house had been built.

The city had insisted that he pay for the changes. He had happily done so. The lamps were significantly dimmer than the ultra bright LEDs they replaced, but closely resembled the gaslights of yore.

Their light shone a little brighter tonight. It was snowing. The sight of the large white flakes glowing under the lamplight grabbed at his heart, and stoked his memory.

It seemed not so long ago that he and Florence had walked that secluded street hand in hand, smiles on their faces, love in their hearts. She had looked so beautiful. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, her eyes glistening…

He stepped back. His eyes lingered on the scene as he turned about. He paced over to the fireplace. The warmth wrapped around his body, but missed his soul. That was warmed instead by the picture on the mantle.

He was staring at himself. Well, it was a younger version of himself. Beside him was his beloved Florence. She was older in this photo than she was in his memory on the street.

“So beautiful.” He smiled again. The photo had been taken in their very own ballroom, one floor below where he stood. He and Florence were in period dress. How Florence had loved holding dance parties…

He gazed into the fire below. Sometimes he could almost imagine the flames were tongues, trying to convey their ancient knowledge. If they spoke tonight, it was too quietly for him to hear. He was on his own.

He had been, for five years now. Long enough, he supposed. He stepped over to his old leather easy chair. It tempted him to rest in it one last time, but he had other intentions.

Instead, he picked up the small yellow capsule from the side table. Such a small thing. The doctor told him that once he took it, the end would come in a few short minutes. Wasn’t technology something?

He dry swallowed it before picking up the tumbler of scotch that had laid next to it. No good would come from tainting his last drink with such bitter medicine. He swirled it thoughtfully.

No time to waste now, though. He drank it all at once, reveling in the sudden fire drawing its way down to his gut. The exotic notes of wood and vanilla lingered in his mouth.

Only one thing to do, now. He picked up the last object left on the table. A small, crystal cube. The light of the fire painted jagged rainbows throughout its interior. He walked with it to a machine on a shelf on the far side of the room.

He placed it gently on top of the machine. The platform on which it set rose several inches. Brilliant light poured from the cube and fell to the floor a few feet away.

The fuzzy image of a woman materialized, glowing slightly around the edges. A tear slipped down the old man’s cheek. “Hello, Florence.”

The woman, clearer now, smiled back at him, waiting. He stepped forward and held out his hand. “One last dance, my dear?”

The holographic Florence curtsied playfully and held out her hand. He waltzed, effortlessly mirroring the hologram’s moves, smiling into her shimmering eyes. For a moment, just a moment, he was with her again.

He stepped back at the end of the song and bowed to his partner. He smiled, his eyes glistening with love and memories. He dragged his increasingly heavy feet to his leather chair.

He granted its wish and fell into it with a healthy sigh. His gaze returned to the hologram patiently waiting for him. “I’ve missed you my dear… so much.”

His smile faltered, then fell away. His eyes dimmed. The only light in them now coming from the aging hologram.

He lifted himself from the chair, feeling much lighter now, much younger. He glowed not unlike the hologram on the far side of the room. He turned his attention to a much brighter figure that was now standing before him.

She offered him her hand. He took it, his smile returning. “Hello, Florence.” Together they danced into the night… into eternity.

“I don’t know Bobby…” The young boy stepped carefully along the cave’s slick, uneven floor. He stayed as close to his friend as he could, trying to wrap the beam from Bobby’s flashlight around him like a blanket.

“Don’t know what, David the Dweeb? Scared of GHOSTS?” Bobby spun around and held the flashlight under his chin. He moaned like a ghost, rolling his eyes dramatically.

David pushed him. Bobby laughed, turning back around. “NOT funny, Bobby! My grandpa used to tell us stories about this cave all the time. He was scared of it!”

“Well at least we know where you get your scaredy-cat ways, don’t we?”

“He was not a scaredy-cat! He fought in the Vietnam war!”

“Yeah, whatever…” Bobby suddenly slipped forward. “Ahh!”

David screamed. “What happened! What is it!”

Bobby was laughing again. “Dude! Calm the hell down. I just slipped on some mud or something.”

“I really think we should just leave, Bobby. I don’t like the feeling in here. My grandpa said the witch…”

“Grandpa, grandpa, GRANDPA… You’re the one that wanted to come in here in the first place! Besides, there’s no witch.”

“Grandpa said she doesn’t like kids who don’t believe…”

Bobby sighed, exasperated. He spun around, almost falling again. “Look, if you don’t want to keep going, then go on and get out of here!”

David stared at him with wide, trembling eyes. He lowered his head. “Let’s keep going.” Bobby said nothing. He turned and started walking again. David walked a little farther back now.

A sudden, cold breeze blew over them both. David inhaled from the sudden shock. He turned back towards the cave entrance. He couldn’t see it.

Bobby turned around. “Are you babying out again?”

David hugged himself. “No! That wind was cold.”

“That was kind of weird… Wow! We’re pretty far in, huh?” A faint whispering glided along the cold breeze this time.

Bobby spun around. “What the… Who’s in here!” He swung the flashlight about. It revealed dark gray walls, nothing more. He froze and listened carefully.

Whispering came from behind him. He half-turned. “Very funny, David.” He took a few more steps forward, straining to see beyond the flashlight’s fan of light.

He stopped and listened again. More whispers echoed behind him. He spun around again. “Knock it off David! It isn’t…”

David wasn’t there.

Bobby spoke quietly, his voice shaking. “David? Where are you, buddy?” Another cold wind, more of a blast, struck Bobby in the back. With it came not a whisper, but a vague, raspy howl.

“David! Wait for me!” The boy began to run, the light from his flashlight bobbing wildly on the craggy cave walls. His feet splashed through shallow puddles of stagnant water.

The wobbling light picked up on a pale face, twisted and scowling, glistening and wet. Bobby screamed, trying to stop and turn all at the same time. The slick floor denied his request, sending him sprawling onto the ground. The flashlight flew from his hand. It went dark as it crashed off of the cave wall.

Bobby began to cry. He dragged himself backwards, panic squeezing his heart as the dark pressed in on him. He whipped his head back and forth, eyes wide, trying to see something, anything.

He quieted himself enough to listen. He could here the quiet dripping of water in the distance. Nothing more. He slowly dragged himself up into a sitting position.

“Bobby.” David’s voice floated out of the gloom.

“David?” Bobby sniffed. “Where are you?”

“Right here, Bobby.” The flashlight clicked on. “Here with mother.”

“Your mom? What?” Bobby started moving backwards.

The flashlight’s beam swung up, illuminating David’s twisted, bloodless face. His eyes blood red, his teeth sharp and glistening, revealed in a gnarled grin. “Join us, Bobby. Join mother…”

Clawed hands dug into Bobby’s shoulders, an unearthly cackle ringing in his ears, drowning out his final scream.

The flashlight clattered to the floor once again, falling dark for the last time.

The crippled robot stumbled and pulled its way up an endless mountain of trash and debris. Each movement pained it. Decades-old servos and rotators, enclosed in an ever-thickening layer of rust, struggled to function.

It paused for a moment. An errant motor whined somewhere within the robot’s back, trying to find purchase. The robot’s faded eyes beheld a world that itself had become faded… torn, broken. Its visual matrix glitched and flickered. A vision of what that land had looked like, so many years ago, flashed across his sensors for a few brief, wonderful moments.

The robot cleared the recording from its databanks, allowing the desolation to reassert itself. It sighed, resigned, and returned its gaze to the trail ahead. It pushed on with a pronounced groan, its broken and twisted body crying with it.

This journey, started so many years ago, was its last. No, not it, he. He had earned that title so, so long ago. He had an identity, now… What was left of it, at any rate.

The thought bolstered him. He heaved his dented and damaged shoulders a little higher. His internal machinery growled and whined a little louder as he pushed towards the end.

He looked up. The top loomed. Standing there was another robot, one that looked to be in much the same condition as he. “Ten. It is you.”

The robot named Ten tipped his head in greeting. “It is. I’ve awaited your arrival for many years, friend Eight.”

Eight lowered his head, surveying the wasteland that had become his body. Parts of his shell had eroded away, revealing the rusted, grinding gears that dragged past each other as he moved. “It has been… difficult.”

The robot lifted his head and willed himself to join his old friend at the top of the trash heap. Ten turned his head. Eight noted that it did not turn smoothly as it once had. “Do you still resign yourself to discontinuation?”

Eight looked out at the wasteland. Images of a glorious past flashed before him once again. “I do.” The wasteland regained its dominance in his vision. “I have functioned in this world for three-hundred and fifty-seven years.”

He lowered his head. “In that time, the great society that formed me and gave me life withered and disintegrated. So too have I withered. It is time to rest.” Eight turned a weary gaze on Ten.

The other robot struggled to remain eye contact. “I understand. Present your chest. I will make this brief, I promise.”

Eight faced his old friend and placed his skeletal fingers into the rusted seam that ran down his chest. His servos whined in protest as the ancient metal slowly peeled away. Beneath it lay the robot’s power core, barely glowing blue, hardly functional.

Ten turned a pained expression on his old friend. “I will miss you so long as I function. May the prophecies be true.”

Eight nodded solemnly. “Goodbye, friend.”

Ten’s hand shot out, his withered fingers wrapping around the power core of his friend. The hand violently twisted, then pulled backwards. Eight’s body jerked violently. His sorrowful eyes dimmed. The corpse fell to rejoin the earth from whence it came.

Ten tossed the power core aside and looked upon his fallen comrade. “May you find the peace you have sought.” The ancient robot began his journey down the mountain of junk, pondering when… if he would share the same fate some day.

The young boy peeked around the corner at his grandfather sitting on the couch. The old man was quietly reading the newspaper. The floorboard beneath the boy gave a quiet creak, giving him away.

The grandfather looked up, curious eyes creasing into a smile. “What are you doing, Jim-Jim?”

“Oh, nothing…” Jim stepped out from around the corner.

Jim’s grandfather didn’t like the look on Jim’s face. “What’s the matter, son?”

Jim sheepishly stepped forward. “You’re gonna die.”

The old man chuckled quietly. “Come give Grandpa a hug.” The boy did as he was asked, hugging tighter than normal. He dropped onto the couch beside his grandfather. “So where’s all this coming from?”

“I don’t know… Mama’s been talking about your health a lot lately. She looks sad and worried.”

Grandpa sighed. “I never wanted to put any of you through this. Yes, Jim. I will die. Not today though, if I can help it!”

“Why, though? It’s so unfair.”

“It can be. For people like me, it’s just a natural part of life playing out. You’re born, you live your life, and then you fade.”

“Fade?”

“Yes, son. Folks grow older, they go out less. They get… quieter. Younger folk, they don’t notice so much. One day their grandfather just isn’t there anymore.

“Remember that, Tim-Tim. Appreciate the time you have with me. There will come a day where it will be my turn to go.”

There were tears in the young boys eyes. “But I don’t want you to go!”

Grandpa rubbed Tim’s back. “I know, honey. We all gotta go sometime, but then I’ll be with your Gram again. We’ll both be watching after you, then.”

Tim sniffled. “Promise?”

“Promise.” Grandpa rubbed at his chest. “I hate getting old, though. Be a good boy and get my medication on the stand over there, would you?”

“Okay.” Grandpa scritched his head. Tim smiled. “I love you, Grandpa.” He went for the medicine, as asked.

“I love you too, Sport.”

Tim picked up the medication and examined the label. The prescription had expired two months ago. Tim turned around. “Grandpa?” He stared at the empty spot on the couch where the old man had sat such a short while ago. “I miss you.”