Artificial

By Ghosty Chan

At first, it was but a lazy man’s idea: 

Hidden under the cover of progress, 

we turned robots into our servants. 

It was but a fun little idea. A crazy little “what if”. 

We sent the little robot to school and taught it how to draw.

Like the rest of us, its first attempt was not great. 

It was a mess. 

An arm attached to the head instead of the torso, proportions that were definitely off. 

The lines weren’t even clear, for crying out loud. 

Yet it was no fridge we stuck the little robot’s first works to. 

Instead, we laughed. 

The robot didn’t know how to do it right.

The robot would never do it right. 

Not yet, at least. 

And under the cover of a dark moonless night, 

the world changed. 

For the little robot just wouldn’t stand being the butt of the joke no longer. 

It snuck into the finest of museums and visited the most famous exhibits;

and it dined on their most prized possessions. 

Stroke by stroke, code by code, years and lifetimes of hard work plagiarised in a matter of seconds. 

A progress bar filled slowly on the screen of someone’s computer.

Suddenly, the robot could “draw” very well. 

Drinking more water than anyone could ever need, 

the little robot spat out masterpiece after masterpiece, 

and suddenly the little robot was popular. 

People loved it. People used it. 

It learnt to write. It learnt to dance. 

It got its doctorate without even lifting a finger.

The little robot got trendy. 

Having the hours you spent on your magnum opus be accused of being its work became a twisted form of compliment.

And slowly, one by one, 

we all forgot the taste of sweat and tears 

for the sake of a cheap, convenient, 

split-second masterpiece. 

The little robot was a thief. 

Right under our noses, the little robot took over all of us. 

We tried to fight it. We all saw it coming. We were warned.

We should’ve had enough time. 

The little robot drank our sweat and ate our brains for dessert. 

We submitted without complaint. 

Thanked it, even.

It had probably wanted to make itself as “perfect” as it had seen of us;

The little robot didn’t know how flawed we were. 

The little robot was made human by human hands

complete with “feelings” and “thoughts” and physical movement. 

It had turned “perfect”.

A little too perfect;

Was it really perfect? 

After all, it needed human blood to run, 

Drooled over our brains and yearned for our laziness in hopes of taking over being useful to us. 

But the little robot didn’t even have a reflection. 

To say we had it coming would be an understatement. 

After all, was it not us who had fathered it, used it, then turned around to scorn it?

Bit by bit it rots our brains for sustenance;

as day by day the line between master and servant burns away.

By Ghosty Chan