SHINY METAL BOXES by Tim Ruel

Author:Tim Ruel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon

Chapter 16

“Alfie, I am not seeing this.”

Emma stood in her kitchen doorway at her PetGo condotel in Detroit, suitcases still in hand. Scattered across her brown faux-wood kitchen floor were dozens of shards of black plastic. Among the fragments laid shredded remains of green compostable kitchen trash bags.

Her kitchen trash bin was no more.

Next to the plastic debris sat a tail-wagging android with bright shiny eyes, ears pointing to the ceiling and a tongue shooting in and out of its jaws.

“The hell happened here, Alfie?” Emma asked, putting down two cases full of dirty clothes. She first didn’t know where to start, then she opened Barkly on eyeGo, found a verbal communications option, and turned it on to try and get some answers from her panting angel. “Alfie, what happened here?”

“I created a welcome gift for your return, master,” Alfie said.

“That’s not funny.”

“That was not a joke.”

“Not a joke? How did you pick this as a gift, Alfie?” Emma asked, pulling out an empty bag from under the kitchen sink.

“You told me to, master.”

“What?”

“You told me to.”

Emma stared at Alfie. “I did not ask you to annihilate our kitchen trash bin, Alfie.”

“My log shows you sent me this instruction three hours ago.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Emma, too worn out to decipher the situation, began cleaning up the mess.

This is bizarre. Alfie tore the bin apart, but nothing else is scratched, Emma pondered. Did he tear up one of the mattresses too?

“Alfie, how long did it take you to do this?”

“Three minutes.”

“Do you have any teeth left?”

“My teeth are synthetic rubber, not glass.”

“You make me so confused.”

Emma finished collecting the remnants of her bin then threw the bag down the trash chute next to the kitchen door. She picked up her suitcases and dragged them down the hall then tossed all of the clothes down the laundry chute.

Now, she thought, what to do? Take a hot bath with a bottle of red wine? Hit the sofa? Go to bed? I’m not up to figuring out why my trash bin is no more. I guess I need to order another one on AmazonAlibaba-Mart.

Emma collapsed on her living room sofa and glanced up at the painting above her on the wall. A small full moon in a cloudy night sky overlooked ocean waves along a rocky black island.

She took in a deep breath, held it for a second, blew it out, and did that five more times.

Some funky command must have been sent to Alfie, who lay on the floor next to her, snoozing and oblivious to wrongdoing. Which was just as well since Emma wasn’t in the mood to put up with a melancholic howling android.

Emma switched on eyeGo television, zoomed the screen several feet away from her and dimmed it, picking a random news station. United Earth leaders were sending a warning about the accelerating number of JD cases worldwide. They projected the total caseload to top fifty million by the end of July. People in cities and towns around the world

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