On a cool and wet Saturday night, i found a woman's heart on a windowsill.

It is small, wrapped in tin, and incredibly light. I cannot help, but wonder whom it belongs to. I turn it over in the palm of my hand, examining it for identifying marks.
It is not ornate by any means, but it is still beautiful. Small designs make their way along the edge like ancient runes from a time that never existed outside this woman's mind. Whatever spell she was scribing, perhaps one of protection, has been left unfinished. Gaps dot the barrier, tiny spaces through which only the tiniest bits of love and pain may enter. Looking closer i can see that the seam along which the tin was sealed is shoddy, at best.
This is not the heart of a careful woman, no. It is the heart of a woman who has learned a lesson. Something or someone made her want to hide her heart away, but i get the feeling it was a surprise. A sour one.

I hold her heart close to my ear and listen....
Yes, it is certainly still beating, despite it's newfound cage. Or rather, in spite of it. The tempo is slow, but not sad. A gentle rhythm to soothe the mind and move the blood. The beating begins to make my eyes heavy, so i place it onto my desk and rest my hand on top of it.
I can feel it's palpitations now, i can hear it tapping out it's simple rhythm on my desk. But this heart is still young, much to learn yet, and so it slips here and there. Like a fourth grade orchestra trying to play Mozart. this heart is filled with ambition, but is still too young to know what to do with it.

I listen to it play a while longer, trying to figure out how one loses their heart. Especially this one. Obviously she had taken some care to guard her heart, so why has it been left laying so carelessly on a windowsill?
My first thoughts are unpleasant. Perhaps this heart is broken and does not work properly anymore? Maybe it had been stolen by a thief whose only want was to take it and not to keep it. She may have given it away to the wrong person; the sort of person who leaves precious things on windowsills. Maybe she went out on the town looking for the sort of thing one does not bring their heart into?
In any case, it was only the city what stole her heart that evening.

Or was it me? Am i the thief or the guardian in this equation?

Don't cross pollinate my words. This collection is separate from the last robot themed flower.

People...well, people on television say, "You can't tell the difference!"
For the most part, they're right.
Their skin feels just as soft, and their internal mechanisms keep it just as warm. Their eyes water; they shed tears of both joy and sadness. They have scars and other imperfections. Their skin burns on the beach. Their tongues are pierced, their bodies are inked. They say that it hurts like hell, even for them.
Their hearts break over forlorn hopes and under the weight of six greasy meals a day. Their pinky toes curl inward, or not at all. The tiny hairs on their knuckles get lost to childishness and butane. Their eyes are only as cold as their hearts, which burn as any fire would.
They get confused, mislead, bamboozles, horny, depressed, drunk, stoned, fucked (literally and otherwise), arrested, lost, reborn as disciples of the more successful religious ad-campaigns. And sometimes, they even get it wrong.
They get the run-around from the used car salesmen of society and the real bureaucrats. They have favorite colors, favorite bands, and favorite fetishes. They have innies and they have outies. They get sick. Sort of.
They sneeze at pepper and at perfume they deem a bit too strong. Actually, the latter is a fake and pretentious sneeze reserved for those of 'superior manufacturing.' They scratch their itches when they have them; real, imagined, or vice related.
They sweat when their nervous. They get nervous. They have allergies, not traditionally speaking, but allergies none the less. They get morning breath, morning wood, and even a psychosomatic form of morning sickness. They play pranks, they...well, you get the picture.
Even with all that bullshit camouflage, there is always one way to tell the difference between an automaton and a human proxy.
Proxies just don't give a shit. They can afford to not give a shit, right? At least the automatons have a sense of mortality, however limited and ironic it may be.
I mean, if you can afford one surrogate, you can afford to break it. Hell, you can afford to break ten.
The way i see it, someone needed to send them a message.
And that's why i shot them.

The date is inconsequential. The place, even more so. The story is as follows.

In the time leading up to this event there had been numerous technological advances in the fields of computer engineering, quantum physics, programming languages, bio/synthetic tissue manufacturing and reconstruction (that's a new one), artificial intelligence administration and regulation (also new), and bicycle design.
That last one is irrelevant, but note-worthy.

Because of these many advancements (and superior marketing savvy), Robotics had become a very popular past time for a great many enthusiastic minds. The most famous of which was a young Mr. Hodders.

Mr. Hodders had just graduated high school and was spending his summer doing something he loved; tinkering with his many Robotic Hobby Kits in his parents basement. Whether or not Mr. Hodders had set out to create the next modern marvel that evening is unclear. Given the dumbstruck expression that can be seen in his mugshot, i think it's safe to say that he had no idea what was about to erupt on his front lawn.
Mr. Hodders was hard at work on a synthetic skin that was neigh indeterminable from human skin, complete with nerve endings and tactile responses. Additionally, he had also constructed a synthetic 'brain' of sorts to ensure the stimulation of the skin would not be wasted on a few thousand lines of simple, inanimate code. Combined with the multitude of parts from his plethora of Build-a-Friend robotic kits, Mr. Hodders was building himself a robotic sex slave. At least, he had intended to.

Later that evening, after the police had removed Mr. Hodders from the premises (in shackles), a national press conference was held in his parents garage.
It had been announced that Mr. Hodders had constructed a "mechanical masturbatory aide" that consisted of many bio/synthetic parts, one of which was the aforementioned synthetic brain. The specifications of the other parts were not released.
The brain in question had become sentient. Unfortunately, it achieved sentience mere moments before being violated by Mr. Hodders. The brain immediately phoned the police and informed them, in a synthesized female voice, that "she" was being sexually assaulted. Naturally, they rushed to the house and, following the screams of assumed pain, they stumbled upon Mr. Hodders in a very compromising position with what appeared to be a woman. Mr. Hodders was immediately taken into custody.
The "woman" was subject to a panel of inquiry consisting of one lawyer, five psychologists, and a slew of computer scientists.
The headlines read: SENTIENT MACHINE PRESSING RAPE CHARGES ON CREATOR

And so was the birth of the self-aware.

Not enough to say. Brain on fire.

Sometimes, it's hard to get through the week.
Sometimes, it's not.
This was not one of those times.

She is standing in front of me, far enough away that i have to imagine i can smell the electric heat burning through her satin skin, but still close enough to hold a gun to my head. I'm looking down the barrel of her lips, watching sweat idle down her hot asphalt neck toward the scarf hanging loosely from her neck. She's not looking at me, her eyes are closed. The scarf is blue and brilliant under the streetlight. I bought it for her, back when i thought she was mad. She was a right peach then, even with having thrown me out. Literally.
She's still not looking at me, but her eyes are open now. She's talking, but i'm not listening. We had our parting words some time ago. No need to drag it out. My eyes wander again. Her coat is long and black, cinched tightly around her waist. She looks like an hourglass with no bottom; the sand keeps falling, but there's nothing there to catch it. Time is running out, as they say.
The large silver buttons of her coat are angled in just the wrong way; the glare from the streetlight causes me to avert my eyes. She mistakes my aversion for shame and adjusts her level of scathing wrath accordingly. She must have been chastising me for some past transgression. There are many things she could have said, but none of them would have mattered to me.
A chill breeze has picked up, but she's still sweating. Poor thing. Must be nervous. Her arm is shaking slightly. The gun is getting heavier and heavier as she piles more and more meaning and reason on top of it, rationalizing and justifying what she believes to be something to die for. I believe her, this is worth dying over.
My attention falters. I don't care what she's saying, i just want this to be over. I look her over once more, trying to find an details i missed. I find some.
Her shoes are red. Her nails are red. Her knuckles are white around the grip. Her gun is loaded. Her eyes are...wet.
Her heart is still mine, i can see it written out in tears across her cheek. She loved me with all her heart.
I wish i'd told her i didn't have one.

And that's when i shot her.

I light a cigarette and let the smoke scrawl obscenities along my throat on it's way out, cutting deep with ragged claws.
Damn. It's not even Monday yet.


Sometimes, you can never tell.

I just wanted a little bit of quiet. That's all, just a day's rations worth of ease.
And i got it. Not a word out of me all day.

As for you...
Get off the soap box and into the cesspool, that water's thick and acquiescent. Here, take my spot. Honest, you'll love it here. Just switch places with me and you'll be in the gold(en filth that fills this place top to bottom).

Time to find another crevice i can exploit. Can someone take over while i'm gone?

Daydreaming. See you soon.

I moved into the city.
An approximate 75% spike in urbanization from my previous residence. It was a large town, or very small city, whichever, but it wasn't a metropolis by any means. Just a lot of suburban-ism and other carcinogenic terminologies.
Dreary, but nice. Like emo-girls who are not in it for the fashion, but rather the chance to know something sad.
Homely is another word i could use, but i wouldn't mean it in reference to my actual home. The town itself was homely; a perfectly adequate place that never made you feel too bad, or too great. Just "fine." Complacent is another word that comes to mind.

I used to live on a lake. Now i live on a river.
I used to live in the woods. Now i live in the concretes.

I miss the birds. They don't hang around here so much, what with the no trees and all. I didn't realize i was missing them until i saw one this morning. Before it flew over me, i was enjoying my breakfast smoke by the river, listening to the city. Absorbing some of it's energy, trying to assimilate into the concrete.
But then i saw the bird. It flew over me, a harbinger of melancholy nostalgia, carrying in it's tiny talons a veil of disparity that enveloped me. And then it was gone, up and over my building.
That was the moment i realized i missed the birds, the trees, the small woodland creatures, and my body of water.
That was the moment, right when the bird passed over me, that i realized how silent a city can be. Nothing stirred, no cars, no people. Even the river resorted to the muted lappings of a cat at it's saucer, and the wind hushed itself into a corner.

The real question, i suppose, is whether i miss the Nature or the nature of Nature.

"If you came looking for something 'special' or some kind of paradise, god forbid, then you came to the wrong place. All you're going to find is the same old shit, but with a lot more sparkle," said Old to New.

"He said, wobblin' his fingers 'round his head like a witch on Hallow's Eve," replied New to Old, adding a little jig to punctuate the remark.

"Stop that, you gutless twit, i'm trying to tell you somethin' here."

New stopped.

"You've got to leave, there's nothing for you here. Nothing good, at least," Old said sternly.

"You don't know what you're talking about Old one." Clearly New was not to be swayed.

"You don't know what you're headin' towards, youngling. You've got to turn back."

"Stuff it Old one, I don't need to listen to your decrepit wisdom. Maybe you should be listening to me?"

"Maybe."

And that's when i shot him.

Little did he know, but so much about that so little he did know that it could be said that he, in fact, knew too much about far too little for his own good.

I keep forgetting there's no one here.
An empty room in the dark, isn't necessarily empty, i guess.
That's one of the many hazards of talking to one's self; you're more inclined to think someone gives a shit, even if it's just you.
Whatever. I don't intend to let the lack of substance keep me from abusing it one in the same.

I wish i was a loom.

Ladies. Gentlemen.

I take requests and encourage discourse.
But be warned, you intend to refute everything i say and you have no intention of taking it easy on me.

Don't say I didn't warn me.

I was stubbing my way along the street, just looking for a soul to eat when i ran into an old friend. Me, in a fun house mirror.
"Looking good," i said to me.
"Right back at ya'," i replied.
I thought about hanging out, checking out what the flip side had to offer, but when i asked myself, i up and left. Sure, i fed myself some malarkey about better things to do, but i know i was just tossing rings.  So i kept on walking past one of the many times in my life where i would cross my own path. I'd experienced a few of them at that point, meeting younger and older versions of myself. The strange thing is, they never have anything interesting to say and they don't seem like they actually want to have anything to do with me. At first i thought they were uninteresting and lame, but then i realized that i'm the real dolt here and then.
I began to wonder why i was being forced to meet such a droll and abrasively serene person. Was it suppose to teach me something now, or then?
I'm beginning to think i exist only to be made an example of...to myself. Living somewhere between an understandably ignorant past and an intentionally ignorant future there is me, living a life of sedition at all costs.
Down with the past!
Down with the future!
Up with gravity!

I went out on the town and hung my toes over the edge, looking down at the funny way they move through the streets. Always crawling, always moving, always taking me where i don't want to go, but i go none the less. Of course. What else would i be doing?
This time they took me to the streets where wild things happen and lead me by the ear to a monastery on the east side. There i met a man so old, and while he made a graceful passing through his years, there was only the shriek of a car alarm whenever his lips did part. He poured me some tea and asked me my name. Before i could explain myself he split my lip with his right fist wrapped around a hokey piece of broken pottery i bought off the interstate. And then i was in a fight with a brother not my own, but close.
He said, " Put your dukes up," and i, through my palms on the table, was able to cover that bet.
My hands in the pile of chipped wealth, he laid down his arms: Aces over Eights.
He looks to me and knows what i've got, because only a crazy little shit like me would ever wager their money makers on 6's and 7's.

I severed my connection to my connections to the world and walked to the door.
It said pull. I laughed.