The Uncanny Valley

Nonfiction in fiction

   The complex located in the city is an easy walk to and from the shop. It may not help with stalkers on prowl at night, but I've grown out of the sheltered childish phase during the times living with my antisocial father (I only know the polite moments of my mother from when I was very young). That all changed in perspective as I grew smarter in the awareness that adult behaviours were merely excuses of escapism. As for me, my escape from family dramas and social anxiety were by reading and gaming. A norm for me when growing up. Helps me get by through my free time even at present. One adult behaviour I am keenly acquainted to would be distracting their kid to not bother them so much while focusing on their paper work at home, chores, and quality time with their spouse. Providing them with toys and television of the like.
   Now at age 21 you won't find any toys out in the open of my bed room. A waste of time cleaning if you ask me, and felt like weight off of my shoulders was lifted from their lack of sentimental value they held after moving in to live with my grandpa. They would collect more dust than the books and gaming consoles I own, and would probably store them in a box to never be seen again. I would keep them in my closet, but that held only room for coats, hoodies, sweaters, a couple of flat dress shoes, and some hats; caps, and visors for the sunny days.

My dad was hardly around to be involved to better understand my behaviour and witness my development to know me thoroughly as a person.
Which was not helpful when providing a background check in my education and "too busy" to offer me a lift or not want to waste money on the school's bus fare. Pop was the one who picked me up, drop me off — to and from school —, and also helped me with my homework and kept me in check from becoming like the other women my dad fell pray to and not fall for people like him. A babysitter you can count on like Batman's butler Alfred.
It was then time for Pop to take action and took me in as my legal guardian a year before I started freshman-high, after finding out how much I was being outcasted by my peers for not "behaving" like a girl or that they were having feelings of discomfort by my silence, assuming I was judging them or even bullying them when saying "why not take your parents' words to consideration". I was only empathizing the fact their parents are probably like my dad; trying to guide them in the direction that won't be repeated from their exceptions when they were pre-teens. Which is probably what lead my dad to be the way he is by seeking self-worth from others, and not himself by grooming and picking up women and spoiling them.
   So, my grandfather took custody of me from my egotistic father who had been "wronged" by many women, and possibly the woman who birthed me.
   Pop even homeschooled me during freshman and sophomore years as a rehabilitation measure to bring back some self worth in my self.
"Those women were seeking self worth from someone else. And not in them selves and never gave your father true worth," he said holding my hand as we walked out of the school building after the conference meeting. My grandfather was not only an optimist, but a realist. He put more thought in his teachings while pointing it back to our belief in order to help me understand that nothing is as it seems. "That's how demons trick us. They play with our minds to toy with our hearts when we are curious and vulnerable. Like the brats who are roaming free inside that labyrinth those fools call a school.
"Our dignity as humans is what makes us see and is why we sin. And your teachers are too soft in their approach of teaching to not make a statement to those children. Nor encouraging their parents to take ownership of the bullying."
   I wasn't all too keen on why people thought I was not a girl enough. I had my reasons to change cloths in the stall. Of course I will change in private. They can believe what they want, I know I'm a girl and I can't help my self for feeling ashamed to change in front of others. I don't want to fit in to overly sexual appeals because It's too suggestive of what I am not.
   "And it was only natural for Eve to eat the fruit before Adam," explained grandpa before bed time. He was reading from the book of Genesis the night after my first day of school when I was only 13 — going on 14— years old. It was a means to feel at home again. "And woman was willing to make the sacrifice to overcome her curiosity.
"She was brave to eat the fruit in case it truly was dangerous to consume. For she loved man genuinely."
   My younger self would always think Eve was stupid to go against the rules they were given. "Ah, but you forget. God gave us a gift. Free will. An opening for the dark to slip in our perspectives; a means for humans to understand what it means to have feelings and to understand behavior better than the creatures they rule over.
   "Like a test brought forth from a parent to a child. And it was free will that drove woman to be tempted by the fruit's beauty, and quench her curiosity.
   "The love and happiness she held for man was what willed her to eat the fruit first. But it was at the cost of losing both of their dignities, realising they were tricked to stare and be stared-at in vain.
"Which lead man to point fingers at woman, and woman to blame the snake only to realize it was she who did not need to go to such lengths of humiliation before The All Seeing and hid more of herself as a means to never let man feel humiliated to stare again."
   I breath in more light to the comforting memory. Recollecting more insight from my youth.  "I thought it was the serpent that tempted Eve," was what confused me at the time. Because of how young and naïve I was about the biology of the human body, that my happy girl energy was not yet tampered with the curse of Eve — limiting her energy of enthusiasm to no longer match man's. I was not yet introduced to the innuendo of ... How should I put this as respectfully as I can...
Pop also taught me terms of the animal kingdom.

"Thanks to woman's happiness to be with man she was inspired to give man something as proof of her affection and partnership for man.
"And as a serpent was periscopeing to reach the fruit, tempted her to its uncanny behaviour."
Yeah, and it was that same limitless energy that made girls bully me with their dirty imagination to change in the stall.
"It was then woman remembered her obedience to 'The Great I Am' who had brought her in this plain of existence and the consequences that were engraved in memory."
  Pretty stupid to give in if you ask me.
"But brave."
Pop's words brought honor and humility to me on what it really meant to be born a woman for what he says next. "Brave to eat the fruit first, as man watched from where he was, admiring her boldness for his sake to prove the worth of his existence, before her own.
   "His heart touched by how much he meant everything to woman that he watched in admiration and fear — observing every bit of her body intently, grateful to see no drastic signs of dying — watching her eat the fruit."
  
Speaking of food. The walk home built up an appetite. I take inventory of the fridge and cabinets — a routine honed before Pop employed me — for anything to fuel myself. Just enough before over come by fatigue.
   I fixed up a salami, provolone between sour dough breed. Simple and not all too time consuming. For the hunger-shakes and stiff abdomen from staying on my feet was a sure sign I needed to regain my strength to get my tired ass out of bed in the morning.
Situated on the stool before the island that divided the narrow kitchen and the entertainment room, I take my first bite of my meal when I took noticed still placed on the surface of the island was that damn letter from the union I had received a week ago. It had been a year since Pop's disappearance, but only two and counting for receiving the notice of the shop's warning of handing it over to those people after bailing him out of his arrest. I wanted to stuff it in the shredder so bad. My guilt in breaking responsibility is what binds me to where I sit. Grandfather's sudden disappearance was noticed when not returning home after a visit to the library a week later.
Earlier today I was having a tough time trying to make the informant to leave before closing time without my grandfather's help.