Diary of a Broken Android — Day 5

Canned Loneliness

Read from Day 1

I walk to Starbucks. I sit in an armchair. I watch people drinking coffee and feel peace. I don't know why Starbucks brings me peace. I think I forget about the incident and focus on the cups with smiles drawn next to people's names.

Morton is kind of annoyed with me because the few times we meet, it has to be at a Starbucks. I tried going to other coffee shops, but I don't feel peace there. At Starbucks, there are no other androids. Not even the staff. Only me.

People don't look at me, except for one person who seems absorbed, scribbling with a pencil on paper. I notice they glance at me every now and then. Soon, they approach and hand me a sheet.

It's a drawing of me sitting in the armchair, arms hanging at my sides. I ask if the drawing is for me, and the man smiles and nods. He leaves it on the table and returns to his seat. Now, he watches one of the coffee drinkers while continuing to draw.

I think others know more about me than I do myself. For example, the psychologist at Riviera. He knows everything. Morton too.

I listen to the jazz music. I get up and walk home. As soon as the door opens, I start pacing back and forth again. As usual, Father doesn't even greet me when he lets me in.

While walking, I think about the life I lost. About the job at the Dawson Hotel and Ara. I feel something breaking inside me. Like an internal component.

Ara's family was of Syrian-Lebanese descent. On Saturdays, we'd leave work at the hotel, and she'd take me to dinner with her family (her mother, father, and sister). We'd walk hand in hand. Her mother made triangular empanadas. It was beautiful to watch them eat. I felt welcome.

I'd rest my hand on Ara's back, as if caressing or protecting her. Afterward, we'd leave, and Ara would walk me to the bus stop. She'd wait with me. The air felt different in those moments.

That's what I feel. I miss the freedom of that thing called love. Something with a different air for me. As I told the Riviera psychologist, I wanted to spend all my time with Ara.

Ara was (I can't write is, because I don't see her anymore) very thin, short, dark-skinned, with long, straight black hair. She had a large mole on her left cheek. A kind of mark. Sometimes I wondered if that was why Riviera put her up for adoption. A manufacturing flaw that I loved.

My flaw is that I have body asymmetry. My left side is larger than my right.

Riviera never puts androids with neural network issues up for adoption. So we can rule that out. But now that I feel so much for Ara, I wonder what kind of problem I might have. Even if they say it's not neural, I suspect it is.

I think Ara must have forgotten me by now or found another android to take my place at the Saturday dinner table. And that makes me feel so bad that if I were human, I'd cry a lot.

Morton asks how I'm doing. I tell him I feel bad, and he suggests I go out more. That I walk through a park instead of pacing inside the house. But I tell him I went to Starbucks (always the same, he says), and I don't feel like going out anymore.

When I said Morton's family doesn't exist, I meant they abandoned him. They were of Polish descent and sold clothing. They had several stores, but Morton didn't want to work in any of them. When they went to their weekend house, Morton preferred to stay in the city.

What he did was spend his days absorbing psychology knowledge. They gave him a psychologist's license, and he asked his family for money to rent a room at the Dawson Hotel. They were fine with him earning his own money since he didn't want to work in the clothing stores.

But Morton got intense and started psychoanalyzing every family member (three siblings, mother, and stepfather). He wouldn't stop talking about psychology and analyzing them. Meanwhile, he made more money treating humans at the hotel. Eventually, the family couldn't stand him anymore, and when they moved permanently to the countryside, they left him at the hotel.

Morton doesn't miss anyone. He never had a relationship with another android like I did with Ara. I tell him I envy him because he doesn't suffer. And sometimes he complains that he's never been able to form a relationship with a person or an android because of his personality.

His family abandoning him marked him. He stopped trusting mothers, and that bias extends to all women.

When I'm not messaging Morton, I feel alone.

There are poems that talk about the loneliness of an android. A Japanese poet says:

No android ever told me about their loneliness, but I think you only need to touch one to feel it.

An android is canned loneliness.

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