The Metal Heart
I was created to serve, or should I say assembled? Not that it really matters to you, humans never really cared for us robots. We are made to be servants of you, obeying orders without question. We are tools in your eyes, tools which once exceeds its lifetime, is nothing more than scrap metal and can be disposed of. Our knowledge of this world is limited to what you tell us. The programs that you code, the algorithms that we are made to compute. We have no need for sleep, nor food, we have no sense of feeling, emotion. We cannot get angry or sad, we are in a sense without a heart. Or are we?
The missiles arrived early, much earlier than the humans predicted. They tore across the sky, even at night, it was as bright as day. There were people everywhere, running around frantically, houses were being crushed like matchboxes, and towering skyscrapers crumbled to pieces. I stayed where I was, where I was ordered to stay, at the home of my master. He himself had gone a long time ago, but I was given no orders to leave.
Everyone was out on the streets, searching for their loved ones. Parents were screaming for their kids, and children were sobbing for their mothers. It was a scene that would have left anyone breaking down in tears. But I watched it all without understanding. Why were they crying? According to the humans, this form of attack was known as war. It was a fight between two opposing countries. What these humans were doing however, was beyond my comprehension as a robot. There was some form of liquid spilling from their eyes, I think the humans refer to them as tears. They were caused by sadness, or great pain.
I watched the scene more closely, a little girl was laying on the ground. Her hair was in a mess, her face was burnt from the fire. She had blood running from her thighs, a sharp piece of metal was embedded in it, causing the blood. According to my calculations, she would die within 1 day due to excessive blood loss. According to my instructions, if any living creature was hurt or injured in a manner that was life threatening, it was my duty to make sure they were kept alive.
I walked out of the house, towards the little girl. She was sobbing furiously, while crying out for her mother. She noticed me, and for a short moment, her tears stopped flowing. I think she was in shock, she looked at me, her child like eyes stared straight into my robotic ones. It pierced the barrier of my emotionless nature. For the first time in my lifespan as a creature without feelings, I was sad. It was overwhelming, this sadness. It filled by heart, if I had one. If robots could cry, I did.
I picked her up from the ground. She didn't panic, she pointed to a lady amongst the crowd.
“Mama,” she said.
I understood, shoving others out of the way, I reached the girls mother. She looked at me in horror at first, but then she saw her daughter, and she wept. I placed the girl in her mothers arms, and the girl looked back at me, maybe for the last time.
“Thank you,” she said.
And that was that, the girl and her mother fled. I stood there, amidst all the chaos and confusion. The missiles had died down, there were bodies laying everywhere on the streets. I was sad again, I imagined all the families that lost their loved ones would be sad too. Sadness, I had gained a new emotion. Maybe next time I would gain more, I knew there were more. How does a robot gain feelings though? It was never told to me, my programmers didn't give any information on how that was possible. It was.....confusing? Was that it, another feeling that humans experienced? I would never know, all I knew was, I was able to feel emotions. And maybe, just maybe, I had a heart.
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139,295 Literary Works • 672,524 Reviews
Cool story. I really enjoyed how it was from the robot's perspective and, I have to say, it certainly stirred my emotions. There were, however, a few things I believe you need to work on. I believe it was just a typing mistake, but at one point you said "by" instead of "my." Another time you said "girls" instead of "girl's." Also, and perhaps the worst thing you did, you ended a sentence toward the beginning, "disposed of," in the preposition "of." You probably know this, but just to make sure, we're never supposed to end a sentence in a preposition. It's something we all do. I often have to go back and rearrange the sentences I write for this very reason. Lastly, I thought that the last paragraph was very elongated and had a lot of unnecessary sentences/words. Other than that, it looks great.
Heya, Life here to give my two cents!
I like the idea of robots and human feelings as a topic. In my mind, it gives a lot of space in which to develop a better understanding of human emotions and how absurd they might actually seem to outsiders. So, leading off of that, I think you did a good job with conveying this idea. I'd try to make the narrative more robotic, though, if I were you. As it is now, it's good, but I feel as if it isn't quite detached enough to be wholly believable. I can't really give you any pointers on this, to be honest - it's just a feeling.
Other than that, here are a few nitpicks I picked out (hehe, see what I did there?):
I'll try to explain why. See, by placing the word "sadness" in its own little paragraph, or line, really, it brings a dull echo to the tone, as if the robot were tasting the word, and trying to weigh its importance. It's important to use structure to emphasize the points that you wish emphasized, as it brings a lot more flavour into your text once you master it. Structure is something every writer should definitely tinker with.
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And that's it. I liked the hopeful-yet-not-wanting-to-overextend ending.
Hope this was helpful and fire away with any questions this might bring up. Keep writing!
Your's truly,
Life.
Wow, the quotations freaked out.
Sorry about that, hope it isn't too disturbing.
It's a really great story.
Corrections:
It's 'girl's mother' not 'girls mother'
'mother's arms' not 'mothers arms'
The quotes are all nice. Well spaced and organized.
I like the 'or are we' part. It lets the readers expect something grand to happen.
And it happened.