Buzzzzz!…..
The alarm clock blinked four thirty to signal the dawn of a new working day. A whisper in my ear swept around my head until I was in a fully conscious state.
“Your breakfast is here,sir” said the silver service robot by the side of my bed. It left the tray on the side table by my bed. The plate contained sausages,beans,and eggs spread neatly on the plate. I didn’t eat it…I never did. Right on cue the wardrobe doors swung open as they always did and the clothes rack slid forward revealing the rack of neatly pressed suits in many different colours.
A disembodied voice spoke:
“Which suit would you like to wear today,sir? Our weather detectors outside have sensed a storm…we would recommend this!”. A large metallic hand appeared from somewhere inside the cupboard and lifted the preferred suit towards me grotesquely. I looked at it and just ignored it. I got up and walked into the kitchen. The bed automatically tidied itself behind me. In the kitchen were service robots cleaning up mess that wasn’t there. The robots all addressed me as sir or master which always made me feel important and superior,even though I knew I was no better than them.
Before I left the house I always checked the calendar. Just then it read June 8th 2054. Next to the calendar was a picture of my parents,who were terminated when they reached 40 years old following government rules act 4567c.
I turned on the conveyer belt next to the back door.
That was my form of transport to the office. I got on the belt and waited.
Ten minutes later I arrived at the office. All my colleagues were talking to their computers. As they spoke,the words appeared on their screens. To think we used to push buttons to create anything on the screens. I sat down at my desk to begin work. I had a window in my office. I looked out of it everyday.
The landscape never changed. The mounds of rubble left from the nuclear war would never be cleared.
There was nobody else who cared that had the ability to.
I saw dark shadows where humans once stood. There was nobody left to mourn for them. I was too busy in my well ordered life to care about them.
The phone rang.
“Please report to my office’ my boss said.
“Right away sir!” I replied.
I left my office and went towards the large room where my boss worked. I sighed as I entered the room.
“Officer number two thousand and twenty five,reporting for duty sir!” I said to the huge computer screen on the wall.
“Here is your timetable for today” the computer replied.
A list of instructions appeared on the screen.
I memorised them and left the room. On the way out I looked in the mirror beside the door. I reached out to fix the bowtie which wasn’t there. A simple,human joke which my creator had programmed me to do.
The only reason I was there that night was to close the deal. The deal that would pay enough to feed, clothe and warm the homeless. To care for the drunks, losers and junkies sprawled through the streets of Edinburgh. To care for us.
The street lamp glimmered like the sunset always did at the docks if you managed to get close enough to see the water. The lamp was the only source of light coming from the street, a brilliant orb of illuminance that shone through the darkness, which engulfed the meagre alleyway.
A figure emerged from the dark. His eyes met mine instantly, as if they’d been watching me for some time. He approached me as a hawk about to catch its prey. I stood petrified, yet slowly advanced to greet the buyer. He had offered to take these drugs off our hands, while making it worth our while of course.
“Have you got the gear?” the buyer grunted anxiously.
“Yes” I stuttered, trying not to show the nerves that were beginning to strangle my body from the inside.
“Let’s see it then!!”.
The buyer talked through his nose, which sounded undeniably unpleasant.
“No let’s see the money first!”
I pretended to be brave, but could see he wasn’t impressed. I could tell by the way specks of condensation were forming on his nose ring he was becoming impatient.
All of a sudden he lunged into his pocket. I stopped in my tracks…
To my relief he hauled out a bundle of notes from his jeans (which appeared to be the source of the stagnant sell emanating from him).
“Okay, here’s the money”.
I tried to ignore the red stains on the notes. Was it dye? Blood, perhaps? I wasn’t about to ask.
He handed me the money. Our arms met and the blue veins from our heroin use seemed to meet each other like rivers that come close together but never meet.
The friendly emotions usually associated with a handshake were disconnected from me by the currency gripped in between. I handed him the bag of heroin, which I knew would swiftly be circulating the arteries of some selfish thug somewhere. The buyer smirked and turned back towards the darkness. A few seconds later he was gone.
The sale was finally over. I had succeeded! Me and my sister were saved!
Perhaps now we could finally rebuild our lives and start anew. With this thought I gathered what little self-confidence I had left and started to turn away.
No sooner had I started walking when I felt the cold clamp of a handcuff lock around my arm. I had been caught.
My thoughts raced around my head hoping for somewhere to go, but they were as confused as me. Before I had a chance to run, sixteen boys in blue pinned me to the ground shouting profanities even the criminals didn’t use.
The head officer, a gigantic powerhouse of a human being, stared me in the face with an expression that scared me even more than the buyer’s before. He began to force his speech down my throat:
“You are under arrest for selling a controlled substance, you do not have to say anything but…….”
His words went on like one of God’s commandments adapted to suit the law.
When he had finished, the officers grabbed me and threw me into the back of the van like an old dog. As far as they were concerned, they’d caught the criminal. The 18 year old responsible for the city’s drug problems.
The thought of my poor six-year-old sister alone on the cold streets of Edinburgh somewhere with no food made me freeze inside. I screamed at the coppers to help me, to help me save my sister. They just laughed.
“He’s high as a kite, probably doesn’t even know what day it is.”
The head officer approached me again. He spat in my face:
“You junkies make me sick”.
He slammed the van door, but not before throwing in a pillow for the journey. I grabbed the pillow and held it closely, it was the only warmth left for me to cling to. I held it close, but not before sweeping the ash off first, from the joint the guard had beeb smoking before.
