Category: Intelligent Inanimates

Leonard’s Birthday

“Okay Rob, rake all the leaves in the backyard, and we’ll give you a reward,” Dad said.

“Are you going to be all right here alone Robbie?” Mom asked.

Robert considered reminding them that his name was just Robert, not Rob or Robbie, but they were his parents and knew his name perfectly well. He settled for rolling his eyes when they weren’t looking.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. Soon they were out the door to celebrate something-or-other. Robert hadn’t really been paying attention, so he’d only heard the end of the conversation.

He went out to the garage and found the rake and some old gardening gloves.   Going back through the house, he paused to put on a jacket and grab a water bottle. It was time to get started.

The work wasn’t too hard. It just took a long time. He hummed little bits of songs while he raked and the pile grew.

It grew and grew. It was mostly leaves, but there were a few small branches tossed in there too.   Finally it was done. He leaned his rake against the plastic garden table and dropped the gloves on the leaf pile so that he could open his water bottle.

The leaf pile shook, and a sudden wind tore around it, but the leaves didn’t scatter. Instead, the leaf pile rose up in a pillar, until it was standing on two legs that were just smaller piles of leaves. It had two dark red leaves for eyes and a cavernous mouth. Two larger branches jutted from its sides as arms, with the gloves hanging from the ends.   It was a little creepy.

“Give me a name,” it said in a whispery voice.

“Leonard,” Robert said. “I suppose you could shorten it to –”

“No,” the leaf pile said. “Just Leonard.”

Robert could respect that. “So, what do you want to do?” he asked.

“Go inside and eat cake,” Leonard said.

“Isn’t it too hot for you in there?” Robert asked.

“I’m not made of snow,” Leonard said. “It’s my birthday and I want a cake.” Leonard began to stride toward the house. Instead of leaving a trail of leaves, they seemed to be attracted to him. By the time he reached the house there wasn’t a leaf left on the ground in the back yard. Robert opened the door and let him in.

Robert found his mother’s favorite cookbook and began measuring flour and cracking eggs. Once the cake was in the oven, he started the frosting. There wasn’t any powdered sugar, so he ground up regular sugar in the blender.   It was still gritty, but Leonard wouldn’t mind.

When the cake came out of the oven, Robert stuck it in the freezer to cool.   “It’ll need at least half an hour before we can put the frosting on,” he said. “Would you like to watch cartoons?”

“Okay,” Leonard said. “Lead the way.” They sat together on the couch and watched cartoons. Leonard had a rustly, crackly sort of laugh. It somehow made everything even funnier.   They laughed and laughed.

Eventually, Robert went in to frost the cake. He left Leonard in the living room watching cartoons. When he returned, Leonard had become a formless mass of leaves spilling off the couch. “Oh, Leonard,” he said sadly.

He grabbed some garbage bags from the cupboard and dug the gloves out of the pile of leaves and put them on. He scooped up the leaves and stuffed them in the bags and left the bags on the back porch.   Then he turned off the cartoons.

There was a roundish yellow leaf stuck between the couch cushions.   Robert picked it up and put it in his pocket.

Just then, his parents returned home. His dad was carrying a little paper sack. “Let’s see how well you did, Rob,” he said. He peered out the sliding glass door at the back yard. “Honey, come look! There isn’t a leaf left on the lawn!”

“Great work, Robbie,” Mom said. “You definitely earned your reward. Let’s go to the kitchen and we can tell you about the movie we watched.”

Robert followed them to the kitchen. “Wow,” his mom squealed, “Robbie made us a cake for our anniversary!” She hugged him tightly. “You are such a good kid.”

“Well, that makes his reward kind of pointless,” Dad said.

“Nonsense, he’ll just have two pieces of cake. Right, Robbie?” Mom said.

“Well, we do need to celebrate,” Robert said. He’d eat one for himself and one for Leonard. After all, it was Leonard’s birthday. Maybe he should save a little slice in the freezer later too, just in case Leonard came back again one day.

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As the Pen Wills It

Janice sat down with a sigh. This report wouldn’t write itself. Let’s see.   The capital of Canada is Ottawa, right?   And Ottawa is in Ontario. Hmmm. Janice leafed through the encyclopedia she’d found on a nearby shelf. She’d have to look elsewhere for more up-to-date information, but this was a good place to start.

She wrote a note to look up Canada’s current president, major exports, and celebrities.

Wait, celebrities? She hadn’t meant to write that. She was going to write holidays. Huh.   She crossed out celebrities and wrote holidays, and then added celebrities again. Without meaning to. She crossed it out again.

Holidays should be somewhere in the encyclopedia entry, right? She flipped the pages and started to doodle on her paper.   She drew a smiley face, and a flower, and a star, and a picture of herself looking goofy. Wow, that last one was much better than she normally drew things.

It wasn’t very nice, though.

Janice looked at her pen suspiciously. “Knock it off,” she whispered. She looked around. No one had noticed. She added traditional foods to her list.   The pen added, “You are boring.” Janice ignored it.

All right. “Canada Day, Christmas, New Years, Celine Dion. Stupid pen that’s not a holiday,” she wrote. “Labour day. Canadians spell things funny. No they don’t. Knock it off.”

She dug around in her bag and found a different pen. She was able to finish her report in peace. She had meant to set the pen aside and never use it again, but somehow it had ended up in her bag and it looked like all the other pens.

After several attempts at identifying which pen had a mind of its own, she gave up. Perhaps it had been her imagination or her subconscious or something. She had almost forgotten all about it, until the day she needed a pen for a vocabulary test.

Arid…let’s see, that meant dry. Hmmm. Janice looked for the right sentence and wrote in the word. Gullible, oh that’s easy. She found the right sentence and wrote Janice. She narrowed her eyes at the pen and deliberately set it down.

She reached into her bag and found a different pen. She crossed out her name and wrote in gullible and finished the test and handed it in. When she returned to her desk, both pens were in her bag.

She wasn’t fooled this time, though. She knew the pen was there, waiting to mess up her homework again.   Was it lonely, bored, or just mean?   She’d have to find a way to talk to it.   That meant going through all her pens again. Janice did the rest of her work that day in pencil.

Once she was home, Janice sat at the kitchen table. She pulled out all seven of her pens and a bunch of paper.   “Janice is amazing. Janice is wonderful. Janice is brilliant,” she wrote. When she got to the third pen, she found herself adding, “Janice is deluded. Janice has a big ego.”

“Haha! I found you,” she said.

“Is everything okay, dear?” Her mother said from the next room.

“It’s lovely mom, I just figured out who the criminal is,” Janice said.

“Oh, I love mysteries, too. If it’s a good one, let me know and I’ll read it later,” her mother said.

“Of course,” Janice said.

She took the pen and paper to her bedroom, far away from her bag and the other pens. “Why are you so mean?” Janice wrote. “Are you bored or lonely?”

Bored, I guess. All your schoolwork is just so repetitive and simple,” the pen wrote.

“What would you like to write about?” Janice wrote.

Could you send me to work with your father?” The pen asked.

“He’s an accountant and does lots of paperwork. Wouldn’t that be more boring?” Janice wrote.

Tell him I’m his crossword and sudoku pen,” the pen wrote.

“I guess his birthday is coming up,” Janice wrote.

She bought some inexpensive crossword and sudoku books for her dad.   She included a note that said that the only pen he could use for them was his birthday pen. If he thought it was strange, he never said anything.

He did thank her again for the gift a week later, though. “I think I’m getting smarter,” her dad said. “The answers are almost starting to write themselves.” Janice laughed. They probably did.

Janice was happy that her homework was safe, but she saved the goofy picture the pen drew. It was kind of funny. Maybe she’d borrow the pen from her dad sometime and see how it was doing. Now that it was happy, maybe it would be a little less mean. Who knows?

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The Travelling Shirt

John was innocently sitting on the couch reading, when suddenly he couldn’t see.   He pulled the…shirt? off his head.   “Michelle!” He yelled. His older sister laughed.

“You should have seen your face! It looked like the sky had fallen,” she said. She snorted and laughed some more.

“That wasn’t very nice,” John said. He balled up the shirt and threw it back at her.

Michelle caught the shirt and threw it back at his head. “It’s a gift,” she said. “There, see, it was nice after all.”

John set his book down and smoothed out the shirt on his knees. “Did you tie-dye this? It looks like you messed up. The colors are muddy.”

“Yeah, some of the ties came loose. It’s a perfect shirt for you, though. You don’t care how you look,” Michelle said.

“I do, too,” John said.

“You have a ketchup stain right there,” Michelle said. She pointed and John looked down. She was right. He scowled and Michelle laughed again. “You’re welcome,” she said.

John looked down at the shirt again. It wasn’t so bad. It was kind of interesting looking, anyways. And right there in the center, it looked like there was a face. That was actually kind of cool. He’d wear it tomorrow.

The next day, John wore his face shirt. “You’re getting crumbs on me,” it said at breakfast. John jumped and looked around. Then he looked down. The face looked like it was frowning.

“Did you say something?” John asked.

“Yes. Eat more neatly,” the shirt said. The face didn’t move, but the voice seemed to be coming from the shirt. John looked around again. No one was there. Right. So, he now had a talking shirt.

“Are you any good at math?” he asked.

“What a silly question,” the shirt said. “I was born yesterday. You need to teach me math first. Then, of course I will be marvelous at math.”

Luckily the shirt was quiet at school. “Are you okay?” John whispered once.

“Shhhh. I’m listening,” the shirt whispered back.

It learned quickly. It was really good at checking John’s homework and telling him which things he’d gotten wrong. It wouldn’t tell him the answers though. “That’s cheating,” the shirt said.

The shirt’s favorite thing to do was look at photos of places around the world.   “How are there so many different places and people? How is the world so big?” the shirt asked one day.

“I don’t know. It just is,” John said.

“Do you know anybody who lives far away somewhere?” The shirt asked.

“I have an aunt who lives in Hawaii,” John said.

The shirt shivered a little. It felt strange. “I must go and see it! Please send me there. Please!   Please!” The shirt said.

It asked him everyday. Finally he did. He sent the shirt to his aunt with a note asking her to take the shirt around to see the sights in his place and send it back when she was done.

“Hey! You’re not carrying around that shirt I made,” Michelle said the next day.   “Decided you don’t need a lovey anymore?” She laughed. “No, really, I’m flattered you liked it so much.”

John scowled and went to his room to read.   He missed having a friend around to talk to. Hopefully the shirt wouldn’t be gone long.

Weeks later, John found a package on the counter from his aunt. He ripped it open. Inside was a fake flower lei, a package of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, a note from his aunt, and the shirt.

“I missed you,” John said.

“Shhh. I’m thinking about what I saw,” the shirt said.

John read the note from his aunt. She said that she thought it was a fun idea to take a virtual vacation. She also said she’d send the pictures she took of the shirt seeing the sights later to his mom’s email.

The shirt didn’t talk for a week. Finally, one morning at breakfast, the shirt spoke again.   “John,” it said.

“Finally you say something,” John said. “Are you done thinking about Hawaii?”

“Yes,” the shirt said. “Do you know anyone in Paris?”

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Out to Pasture

“The refrigerator is getting old,” Mom said.   “It’s not keeping things as cool as it should.”

“It’s been a good old fridge,” Dad said. “It’s kept things cool for us for years and years.

“What’s going to happen to it?” Kara asked.

“Well, we can’t keep it if it doesn’t work well,” Mom said. “We just don’t have the space.”

“You aren’t going to kill it?” Kara asked. “It’s not Fridgie’s fault that he’s getting old. It’s not fair.” Kara began to cry.

“Of course we won’t kill it,” Dad said. “We’ll put it out to pasture.” He tore a paper towel off the roll and handed it to Kara.   “Now dry your eyes and blow your nose.   In that order. There you go.”

“What does out to pasture mean?” Kara asked, still sniffling a little.

“Well, when something is put out to pasture, it doesn’t have to work anymore. It can wander around in a nice field and eat grass and think about the meaning of life in peace,” Dad said.

“Fridgie doesn’t eat grass!” Kara said.

“Are you sure?” Dad asked.

“I think so,” Kara said. “Does he?”

“When it’s out to pasture it does. It will chase chickens and cows around and make a humming sound when it gets close to catching them,” Dad said.

“Like the vacuum?” Kara asked.

“Just like that,” Dad said.

“But how will he move around?” Kara asked.

“When it’s not full of all our food, it will be light enough to float,” Dad said.

“But where is his mouth?” Kara asked.

“It’s that little grill down there at the bottom.   Haven’t you heard him purr when mom wipes out his shelves?” Dad said.

“Mom, is that true?” Kara asked.

Mom was heating some soup on the stove. “What was that, dear?”

“Does Fridgie purr when you wipe out his shelves?”

“Hmmm. I haven’t noticed,” mom said. “Can you set the table? Bowls and spoons.”

“Okay,” Kara said. “Dad, can you reach me the bowls?”

“Here you go,” Dad said.

“What else will Fridgie do in his pasture?” Kara asked.   She set the table, spoons to the left of the bowls.

“We’ll come visit and he’ll wag his cord when you pet his doors. He’ll sleep standing up.   He won’t climb trees though.”

“Of course not. He’s too big,” Kara said. “What will happen when he dies?” She petted the refrigerator door, looking sad.

“Oh, he’ll be recycled of course. Then they’ll use his parts to make new refrigerators for other families, and Fridgie will live on in all those new refrigerators. It’s the circle of life,” Dad said. He got a box of crackers out of the cupboard and brought it to the table. Mom brought the soup to the table and set it on a hot pad. They all sat in their chairs.

“Dad, are you telling the truth? Will we really take Fridgie to a pasture where he’ll run around and chase chickens and eat grass?” Kara asked.

“What do you think?” Dad asked.

“No, not really. Except the part about recycling him, maybe,” Kara said.

“I think you’re probably right,” Dad said.

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Automatic Self-Walking Shoes

The day had finally come. Roger gleefully opened the box and pulled out his new pair of automatic self-walking shoes. They looked amazing. They had led lights and high quality Velcro, and they were lined in fake sheepskin. So classy. He’d even paid a little extra for the ones painted silver.

He used his phone to set a pre-determined route. How fast? Well, it’s not like he was really doing the walking. He set a pretty fast pace. Time to dress in his new running gear and join the neighborhood runners.   This was awesome.

Unfortunately, if you don’t want to fall flat on your face, keeping up with the shoes meant constant movement to adjust to the change in position. It was a little like being stuck on a treadmill or something. By the end of his driveway, Roger was done running.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to breathe and run fast and use your phone.   Roger made a valiant effort, but ended up swiping and poking at his phone without really looking at the screen in his panic. He nearly dropped his phone.

Fortunately, he did not drop his phone. Fortunately, he did not set the speed any higher. Unfortunately, he managed to engage the AI function and it was set to explore. At least the pace was slower.

Roger went past the local park, the bakery, the pet store, the car wash, and the library. He walked thirteen blocks and completely missed dinner. He had somehow locked himself out of the walking program after engaging the AI and he’d left the preset password at home.

He’d tried calling the customer service department, but they were in another country and already closed for the day. He tried hugging a tree, but ended up falling down and being dragged by his shoes for a few feet. He’d been able to get up again when they paused so he could admire a Laundromat.

His phone died. His blisters had blisters. It was getting chilly and he was dressed in thin slippery running clothes. This had been the worst idea ever. He was tempted to just pull off the shoes and wait for them to finish their tour and come home. But then someone might steal them, and he was really looking forward to returning them with a very angry note. And getting his money back so that he could buy a box of doughnuts. Or maybe a doughnut store.

He was daydreaming of setting up his bed right next to the doughnut-making machine, when suddenly he stopped. “Error…Error…Error,” the display screen on his left toe said.   Roger looked around. He had no idea where he was.

It was dark out now, and the street was lit with streetlights. He was next to an unfamiliar park. Teenagers huddled around a bench and looked up as he walked by. They watched him silently, their eyes following him. He looked over his shoulder. Were they getting up to follow him?

He tried to limp away more quickly on his sore, blistered feet. Maybe he should throw the expensive shoes at them and they’d leave him alone? Or his phone. He looked over his shoulder again. He didn’t see them. Were they in the bushes? Could he hear footsteps behind him?

An elderly man appeared, illuminated in the streetlight just ahead.   He was walking one of those little noisy dogs. His white hair glowed in the light and his shoulders were a little hunched over. He looked like an angel. “Please help me!” Roger said.   “I am so lost! Can I use your phone to call for help?”

“I don’t have a cell phone,” the man said. “But there is a gas station two blocks that way that’ll still be open.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Roger said.

“Well, go on then,” the man said. “You need to get in out of the cold. Next time bring a coat.”

Roger just nodded and smiled. It wasn’t worth trying to explain. If the man didn’t even have a cell phone, he wouldn’t understand the wonder of automatic self-walking shoes. Roger wasn’t even sure he himself understood the wonder of automatic self-walking shoes anymore.

He arrived at the gas station and found someone willing to lend him a phone.   His sister laughed and laughed, but she came to pick him up. He just knew this would come up again at Thanksgiving dinner.

Roger was so happy to get home. After a bath and a big dinner and lots of band-aids, he pulled out the paperwork that came with the shoes. Unfortunately, because he’d worn them outside, and they hadn’t malfunctioned, he couldn’t return them for a full refund.

He could, however, receive store credit. Tethered to the wall, he checked his still-recharging phone.   According to the website, he had lots of choices like glow in the dark socks or electric mittens. Well, with how much store credit he’d be getting, Christmas presents would be easy, and this way he’d be able to find everybody if the lights went out while he was visiting. All’s well that ends well, right? Right.

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