Still Turning
A dying robot finds an unexpected companion
Pyron watched at first light the latest dumping.
TrashBot 101 upheaved its large truck bed back against the pond edge and vomited out an array of spoiled metals and plastics.
From the base of the windmill, Pyron had perfect sight of today’s landfill haul. There were legs and arms, long rusted. The eyes, most plastic or glass, lay open and staring — forever staring. He could almost imagine life in those eyes again, if what he and others like him could be called alive.
Pyron waited for the final drop before he wandered down into the landfill.
The pond had long dried up years ago. Not long after its drying, the people left too, and with it, they left him: another old, aged, rusting bot at wait for his turn to be dumped.
He rummaged. Some days, he found usable parts. There were metal fingers with working joints to replace his aged hands. Once, he found a nice skull piece he welded to his dented head. None of the eyes ever fit him right.
Pyron took his steps slow along a path through the pond bottom. He could last a hundred steps before needing to return to the windmill and recharge. Last week, it had been one hundred and forty steps; the week before, one hundred and sixty.
