Whatever Happened... to Robot Jones? Continued

Chapter 11: The Gala (Part 1)

"Grampz unit? It is me, Robot. I am home from school, and I have come to inform you that I will be leaving again shortly. I know I promised during my last visit to come play a game with you tonight, but it seems there is some sort of event going on at the factory, and my presence, as well as Mom and Dad Unit's, are required. I'm not sure if they told you anything about it, but I can't help but feel suspicious. I've never known an event at the factory that required formal wear. I wish you were feeling well enough to be transported with us tonight. Grampz? Grampz unit? Are you in there?"

Robot shouted into the old fashioned horn that was attached to Grampz's hearing receptor, but the old computer did not stir. Grampz sat silent with his lights blinking, which should have confirmed that he was awake, but it could have been one of the various malfunctions he was experiencing nowadays. Lately, Robot couldn't tell if Grampz was harder to wake because of his age, or if he simply didn't want to be woken up. Given that the screens stitched into the walls of his body were on standby, it almost seemed like Grampz was ignoring him, and given the extended periods that happened in between their conversations lately, Robot didn't even blame him. If that's what indeed he was doing, that is.

"Forget it," Robot sighed, half tired and half frustrated, slamming the lid shut on Grampz's hearing amplifier. His voice echoed as the amplifier's horn traveled down the old pipe, making Robot's normally quiet voice loud enough to overwhelm the constant rumble of Grampz's body in the cold, sealed basement, and the old machine was still unresponsive. If he was comatose, there was nothing Robot could do. If he was playing games with Robot, well, he could forget his grandson coming down to tell him about his daily events more often.

That afternoon, just as his mother had instructed, Robot came straight home from school. He finished his homework in half the time it took normal students to do, and removed his tuxedo from the closet. But before he put it on, he went to see Grampz unit to ask what he knew, if anything, about tonight's proceedings. But seeing as he wasn't going to be getting anything out of Grampz today, Robot stormed back up the stairs to face the task of actually putting the tux on.

Part of him worried about the lingering odor the clothes might carry, it having been what he wore the night that his exhaust pipe malfunctioned at its worst, but because he didn't have a nose, he had no way of knowing. He held it up to a cold fan for a while, just in case.

On its hanger, the bow was still surprisingly starchy, the shirt white as clouds. He'd only ever worn this suit once, only ever once needed to do so. To dress up excessively was to conform to a human expectation, and he felt conflicted in doing so.

It wasn't easy the first time, trying to fit his boxy frame into those pants and that jacket, and it wasn't a lick easier to do it the second time. If Robot ever wore clothes, they were looser, specifically for this reason. But a tuxedo didn't look good if it was baggy. It had to be form-fitting. So he gave himself thirty minutes before he would be picked up to get himself into the tux. He refused his mother's offer help the first time, when he wore this to the harvest dance, and he was glad, because at least he knew he could do it this time without ripping a hole somewhere.

With the flaps of the shirt aligned perfectly to the center of his neck, the last thing was put on the bow-tie. Being a robot, this was actually the easiest thing to do, his mind perfectly memorizing the motion, even though he'd only done this a couple of times. But as soon as he looked at himself in the mirror, a wave of disgust rolled over him. He looked exactly as he did the night of the Harvest Dance, as if the two years since that night never happened. The curse of a robot was the inability to physically age, save for broken or worn parts, and Robot had learned this the hard way, with his failed experimentation with growth spurts. After that, Robot had grown to tolerate the knowledge that he was never going to physically change, and until that night, he hadn't really thought about it much again.