HUMANOID
I wake up at 6.30 AM hearing the voice of an alarm clock. I get ready for work in half an hour. I head off to my office in a cab. I sit in front of a 16 inch computer Screen at 9 'o' clock. I put alphabets and numbers into the computer. My screen friend shows me those alphabets and numbers back to me. That is how we exchange our love. I spent like 10 or 12 hours a day with her. Even though I spent that much time with her for years I didn’t miss her at least once while I was away from her. The best thing about our relationship is that I get paid for spending time with her. Which other relation have this benefit? Our relationship made me a reputed person in the society. Women started showing interest to marry me. I would have admitted living with one of them, but it's too late.
When I first started spending time with my screen I was happy with that. The process of texting her continued for like more than a year and I earned a new car, a new phone, rented a nice apartment which made me happy at first.
Someone once said, “People will start to behave like who they spend most of their time with.” Now I realize that. It took me around one and half years to find that weird fact about my life. I also started to behave like my computer. I wake up by an instrument. I do my chores mechanically. I type and think like someone programmed me that way. I stop my work when it’s finished, not when I am exhausted. I get back to my apartment and shut down my system with a couple of glasses of alcohol. Few days back I saw a cursor being moved across the screen of my computer and some weird things started appearing on the screen, the sight become more and more disturbing and at last I woke up from Sleep and realized it was a dream. I couldn’t help getting back to sleep again. I stayed awake that whole night. It is then that I realized that I am changing into a human robot. I used to dream about my crushes, my fantasies, ghosts, my friends, the sun, the moon, the river, birds. Now I can’t dream such beautiful things. Because I haven’t seen them in a long time. I didn’t have time to watch the sun rise or sets. I didn’t have time to watch the moon and the stars. I didn’t have time to meet my friends or family. All I have been seeing is the white screen with cursor moving over it.
Days got tougher and tougher. Sleepless nights began to occur frequently. I was turning into an insomniac. I sleep hardly three hours a day. I don’t need the help of an alarm clock now. I am already awake at 6.30 AM, the truth is I am not really awake. I am in half sleep all day, while having food, while taking shower, while I brush, while I work, while I drink. The sleepless days continued for almost two weeks. Then one day I drank a liter of alcohol and went to sleep. I slept for three days continuously. It was like I woke up in a totally different planet. I asked myself, where am I? Who am I? What time is now? Which year is this? I was completely lost. I went to work the next day happily and satisfied.
It was good for a few weeks. Then again things went back to where it was. Then I found a new way to get rid of the problem. The problem started when I started thinking that I am a robot. I stopped thinking about it. I started to just live in the present. It was hard at times. But it worked after few weeks of effort.
Years passed. I was 22 years old when I started working. Now I am 27. I survived 5 years living like a machine. Well, I stopped that thinking. But last week I had that weird dream again. Cursor was randomly moving over the screen and a voice coming through the speaker telling me to type the best memory I had in my life. The voice started to feel creepy and disturbing. I woke up from sleep. I sat motionless for few minutes. I thought about the best memory I had in my life. No! I don’t have any memories. I looked back. Past gave me money. No memories. I was blank for past five years. That period erased all my memories I had before. Now I am completely aware that I am not a human anymore. I am a machine made of flesh and bones. Thank you corporates and technology for transforming humans into machines. Now you are busy making robots with plastic which can think. Humans that turned into machines didn’t react. But robots that think won’t act like that. They may destroy you. So beware.
Sometimes I want to cry as loud as I could, sometimes I want to laugh till my stomach hurts, but I can’t. I am not a human anymore. Now I could kill another human being without any regrets. For me he is just another robot like me. I can stop all this and go back to a normal life. But I can’t, because I am used to it. I am afraid to do that. I have to live like this to maintain all the material things I earned which doesn’t make me happy anymore. I have to live like this to maintain mine and my family’s reputation in the society. I thought about committing suicide but I don’t have the guts to do that too. The only thing I can do now is to pray, “Sweet mother of death, please take me with you as early as possible. It won’t be too hard to take my life, I won’t show any resistance because I am already a dead body that breathe. And let me born again in an uncivilized society where there is no educational institution or big companies or fast moving vehicles. Where I could wake up from sleep when I really want to. Where I could see the sun, the moon, the stars. Where I could jump into the cold river whenever I need a bath. Where I could hear the humming noises of birds. Where I could climb trees and pluck fruits and eat them. Where I could live as I like without any barriers of thoughts about what other people think.”
