a doll's aid
you cannot count all of the stars in the night sky. try as you might, with a paper and pencil in your hand, diligently tallying the count, you will not keep a proper count. you will tire before long, you will wonder if that star was counted twice, maybe thrice, and you will resign. you may instead rest your chin upon your folded arms, gazing up at the uncountable, unknowable shining lights in the sea of the night sky. this i know, though i still cannot help but gaze up, counting from one, two, three… until i lose track, sighing at my wasted time. tonight, i had counted in vain once more before a giggle escaped my lips. i could not help it; at times, i endeared my own self.
as those white lights shone triumphantly overhead, i continued my pace on the sidewalk. from a habit born partly from being polite, and partly from my own whims, i had learned to walk with my arms behind my back. such a frame gives me an amicable, proper look, and as a doll, you could not learn to be anything but proper. i shifted the plastic joints in my elbows as i reflected on that.
it was not long before i was ready to turn the corner on the block, that i then heard a curious noise. it was a whirr, mechanical in nature, emanating from the alleyway situated behind me and adjacent to me. i had thought it nothing more than the sound of a neighbor’s appliance before i once more heard it; this time, i could have sworn a spark or two flew to my right as i glanced over my back. tentatively, i kept my pace slow and quiet as i crouched over, peeking around the corner. in the alleyway, i saw a figure, feminine in design, sitting on the cold and damp concrete by her lonesome. she had looked rather intact, though with better days behind her, before i then saw the arm to her left hanging loose. her wires were out in the open, dangling over her chest as she seemed to frantically — though quietly — arrange them back into what could have only been their original place. this did not work, as her wires must have surely relied on the intact casing of her arm to be compressed and held in place. feeling an inevitable sorrow rise to my chest, i could only blurt out, “oh…” like a fool and completely disregard how loudly i had spoken.
her head immediately turned my way as the movements of her mechanical limbs came to a halt. our eyes locked onto one another’s, the silence of the night filling the air. “well,” i had begun to start, before she quickly interjected, “don’t come near me.”
of course. when a robot as her is left vulnerable, it is only natural to assume one such bad actor could come along to enact a myriad of personal desires. disassembly, kidnapping, coercion… my heart sunk at the thought of her viewing me in such a light. quietly, with the most gentle of gentle whispers, i spoke, “it’s okay. i’m not going to hurt you.” though that was the only such thing i could have said, it had still given me a fright when she almost immediately retorted, “you expect me to believe that?” silence once more filled the air as the night itself seemed to halt. did the stars always seem so distant? before i could say another word, her shoddy repair had once again come undone, the casing of her arm detaching from her upper body as her wires flowed out onto her chest. desperately, with a much louder panic, she began to shift her body away from mine peering from the corner, until she was against the wall of the alleyway. “please,” she whispered. “i don’t have it in me to take it anymore.”
it was then that i had opened my purse without a thought, sorting through its contents with a calculated grace before landing on the parts i had been looking for. i took out a screwdriver and a few bolts, such contents being commonplace, accustomed as i was to conducting everyday house repairs. i slowly approached her, with the most delicate demeanor i could muster onto the movements of my plastic limbs. she continued cowering before me until the moonlight shone at just the right angle, lighting the front of my plastic body before her eyes. “you,” she whispered, “you’re not like them, either.” i gave a slow nod. reluctantly, she shifted her body closer to mine, though the gears in her body still whirred with anxiety. “are you familiar with my model?” she asked, looking at me with a tinge of hope in those digital eyes. “i am not,” i hesitantly spoke, gazing over the contours of her gray, metallic body. “but i can try.” with a mix of fear and resignation in her gaze, she nodded. i gently grasped the lower part of her arm. how cold it was! though i did not bear the human skin of those more sensitive to temperature, i could sense it all the same. it was not that i wanted to recoil, however. i instead found a fascination coming upon me. without thinking, i traced the outline of her metal arm with my plastic fingers, marvelling at the texture. they were not the smooth plastic of my own, nor were they the tenderness of those humans — so cold, so intricate, so firm, yet how vulnerable it seemed when in disrepair. my gaze lingered on her body, seemingly fixated on everything that was not a part of the one task i had laid out before me. when my gaze then drifted up to her pleading eyes, i had gained back a sense of control and purpose. “okay,” i whispered to her.
i began my work on assembling her loose arm back together, familiarizing myself with the outer shell of her body and the supposed proper placing of her wires as i anxiously worked her metal back into place. when i had planned out where i would adjust her wires and how exactly i would fix her arm back together, i had taken the most care i could in conversing with her, gently, slowly, to ensure she was aware of what i had in mind. she had given me approval, and so, with the passing of what must have been at least half an hour, i had worked with my tool to repair her back to proper condition. i then shifted from kneeling down to sitting down as i rested my back against the concrete wall, somewhat exhausted despite the makings of my body. i watched as she slowly moved the digits in her hand again, twisting and turning her repaired arm with a calculated look in her eyes, before suddenly the gears in her body had seemingly whirred in relief, and she turned to face me, the pixels in her eyes forming an apologetic, but grateful look. “you helped,” she softly spoke. “a lot, but…” her speaker’s voice trailed off, before continuing, “but why? i don’t have anything to give you in return, so… it’s useless, isn’t it, i mean.. i’m useless, anyway, that’s why i’m here…”
i could not have possibly known in that moment the full weight of those words. this girl, with a rough exterior that had betrayed her surprisingly meek interior, kept gazing at me with a demand to know my intent. even now, as i had helped, she had suspected some underlying motive. not knowing how else to possibly quell her fears and curiosity, i simply grasped her hand with my own. she gasped, though she did not stop me. i intertwined my plastic fingers with her metallic digits, holding her hand with a gentle firmness. gazing down at her body, i could only respond, “you are beautiful.”
i do not know if she was attempting to measure, even now, the full extent of my character. i do not know if she was assessing the risk, or simply in such a state of abandonment to have made her unable to gauge malice from benevolence. she did not speak a word after; she had only leaned her head on my shoulder, grasping my hand a with a force tighter than my own. she placed a hand on the hem of my skirt, lifting it only to expose my plastic thigh. she then brushed her free hand over it, measuring me as i did to her earlier. “soft,” she whispered. “so soft and not like me.” humans could hardly consider plastic to be a soft material, though to a robot like her, i am sure that human warmth was not at all what she considered soft. i allowed her to do as she pleased, the weight of her head remaining on my shoulder as her fingers ran up and down my plastic. “together…” she murmured. i looked at her curiously. she seemed a little hesitant to speak the words, but she had then continued, “together… can we be together?”
“of course,” i replied without a second thought. we did not exchange any words for the next hour. we had only our inhuman bodies, tracing each other’s, tentatively, yet with awe. her fingers grasped my shoulder, my hands held onto her legs, her other hand rested on my hips, and my remaining hand laid itself onto her cheek.
“what is your name?” she asked softly, gazing into my eyes with the pixels arranged in a display i had not seen before.
“my name is Lina,” i whispered. “and you are?”
“Ambre,” she murmured.
with a flutter in my chest, and what must have been an eager yet anxious whir of her gears, our jointed bodies leaned in, closing the distance as we kissed under the stars. in this moment, with her hands on me and my hands on her, i could think of nothing but the way she shone under the moon’s light, still so beautiful, still a sight unlike anything i had ever glanced at before.
the countless stars shone above us, as though to celebrate us. as our lips parted and we once more leaned against each other, my gaze turned to the night sky above. i did not need to count the stars — there was one leaning right against me, and she was the only one i had needed to know.