the grief of an amicabot

Larry had a vision of his predecessor. His face was radiant and kind. The sun passed through his eyelashes and cast thin shadows like rice grasses on his cheekbones, and the old house was filled with light like a spilt can of amber-colored paint. He brushed his thumb across the crocodile’s scaly forehead, anointing him with the oil of joy, and Larry saw Heaven descend on his head like stardust as the older man whispered to his nuclear heart,

"I am always with you.”

And when Larry opened his bleary eyes to find it wasn't so, tears brimmed in them.

I miss you, Pa.

His grubby paw trails up his belly to the rusted license plate welded to his chest, thumbing the scratches, bumps, and grooves of decay, feeling every little detail that made it truly his. Sure, he could make it look cleaner than a whistle, scrub away that grime, and paint back the faded words, but… All those little things were handmade by his predecessor. With love.

He couldn't bear the thought of scraping away the last remnants of fatherly love he had left, he clung onto it like a mountain climber clung to rubble.

Larry's hand lazily trails up to his roughened snout, feeling the slit running down his nostril to his maw. His pa had a cleft lip. The detail flickered him back to another memory.

Eavesdropping on a phone call with his adoptive granddad, Larry learned that he was originally meant to be a mere work mule, carrying heavy crates and stocking the high shelves the old man couldn't and that the guy didn't even like him at first. Androids freaked him out, and technology advanced faster than a bullet, it “zipped right over his head and left his glasses jostling off his nose,” he said. The only reason he got Larry was because his son, who had moved off to college and could no longer help him around the shop, advocated for him, too.

But when Larry arrived and the man saw his cleft lip, something must've flickered in that muscle behind his ribs that hadn't felt something in a long time… There was something about that “big feller” that reminded him so much of his own blood.

How he squinted his onyx eyes when he grinned, how he hardly seemed to know what planet he was on half the time, how like his son when he was younger, he got into everything because he was just so eager to explore the world.

He still remembered those nine words his uncle said over the phone.

“I get to raise my boy all over again.”

Tears, like a wobbling cup threatening to spill, prick his eyelids until they relent and finally fall. His cheeks wetten like the salt-slicked deck of a ship, and when he takes his thumb to wipe them away, he closes his eyes and imagines it's his grandfather doing it for him.

“It’s alright, son… Don't cry.”

I'm really trying, pa, I really am.

Why was it only the predecessors, why couldn't the Amicabots too fall with their family, friends, and lovers? Why was it that Larry couldn't join his grandfather in the afterlife, wherever that may be…

Instead, Larry had to harrowingly watch his grandfather become a shut-in, refusing to explain why he never went outside anymore and why customers never came. Larry looked to the ever darkening skies with a sense of impending doom, but he trusted his old man's word that'd it all clear up one day.

But as the days droned on, the swarthy blood he'd hack up grew in quantity, the shuttering of his breath harsher, the groaning of joints carrying too many years louder, until he was eventually bedridden. Larry wasn't programmed to care for people, he was no doctor like Adder, but he tried his best.

And yet, he wasn't enough. One day, his grandpa didn't wake up. His corpse still lay in that bed, bones gnawed away by the wind and soot. Larry didn't have the composure to go back in that room yet.

Larry, choking and sputtering and making whatever other embarrassingly ugly noises his grief spurred him to pour into his palms, wondering what demented god could've done this, had barely even noticed David hopping up on the work desk. It was only until the cat, quite literally, wormed it's way through the crevice of his beefy forearm did he realize his pet was worried and checking on him. 

The crocodiles breath hitched, and he subconsciously took him into a comforting embrace, cradling him to his stuttering chest.

“I-I’m alright, Dave, just sad, s’all,” Larry sniveled through strained hiccups and knife-fast breaths, “It’s stupid, I should be over it by now…” he choked, trembling like a war veteran during a firework show. He loathed himself for not being able to get over it already. He couldn't count how long it's been since he died, and yet, each time he thought about it, it made his stomach churn and his veins frost over like midwestern indigo.

Larry clung onto the spunky kitten like a lifeline, anchoring him from the unruly churning seas of his mind like nothing else would. He felt the gaskit softly purr against his neck, and with two teeny paws, began making biscuits on his gular pouch suspended from his throat.

Prrr.. prrr .. prrr….

The mechanic’s muscles went lax as flowing magma, and his eyes flutter shut in focus. Consequently, his breath grew shallow and slow as he attempted to listen closer to David, until before he knew it… He wasn't hyperventilating anymore. He wasn't even crying anymore.

David had no clue what he did, but he seemed pleased with himself nonetheless, and curled into a tight ball in his palm.

“...Maybe I haven't lost everything.” he whispered, thumbing the kitten's rubber cheek. Maybe it wasn't all lost. Maybe Larry hadn't lost his purpose.

Helping.