I want to Love (ProtonConroy) Contest Entry

       I have many great and different friends. There’s quiet Tim, derpy Josh, weird Tyler, crazy Reese, happy Donna, quirky Jake, and random Patrick. They all have specific attributes that define them. But I don’t get these things. What makes a person “happy” or “quiet”? And they say I’m “angry”. What does that mean? When I ask, they just think I’m being philosophical, and they try to answer, but I still never get it. And there’s one man that breaks all the rules that so many people have explained to me.
Emile.

       He’s the biggest reason for my problem. He’s “happy” when there’s no reason to be. He’s never “sad” when things that would trigger “sadness” happen. I just don’t get it.

       Will I ever understand?

       But with who I am and all… I’m not supposed to know. No one like me has ever been able to understand. But I want to understand. But I can’t feel. I’ll never know what happiness feels like; I’ll never know what sadness feels like. I shouldn’t. It’s impossible. But then why do I feel this aching in my chest, this emptiness, whenever I see people “laughing” of “having fun”? Why do I want to be able to cry with them even though “sadness” is supposed to be a negative feeling?
       
       I’ve tried to learn all these feelings, and I understand them as best as I can, being who I am, but there’s one thing I still don’t get.
Why does it hurt so much when I look at Emile?
~
“Ah, crap, not a good time!” I shout as I burn myself on the stove in the kitchenette in my hotel room. “No, not good at all…” I see my flesh melting away. It doesn’t hurt of course, but it’d be bad if someone saw. My secret would be out. So I grab a roll of gauze from the medicine cabinet and wrap up my arm.

“Hey, you okay over there Jon?” Josh calls from the other side of the room where he Tyler and Reese were playing cards.

“No, I’m fine!” I call back. I walk away from the stupid kitchen and out to the main part of the hotel room.
“Oh! Jon, what happened to your arm?” Reese asks.

       “Did you burn yourself?” Tim follows.

“Yea, but it’s nothing.”

“Here, let me see it.” Donna said, standing up.

       “NO! I mean, no, it’s fine, really!” I say with an unconvincing grin.

“Jon, show me your arm! If I can see it- I- can- treat- it!” she grunts as she fights to get the bandage off. “Let- me- help- you!” finally she rips away not only the bandage but my weak flesh. Everyone in the room gasps as the synthetic red liquid in my arm splashes to the floor and dissolves into nothing, as it does when it comes into contact with certain elements. When it’s all gone it reveals not bone, but gears and axis.

       “Jon, you’re…” I don’t hear the end of the sentence as I run out of the room and down the stairs, out to the edge of a hill. I sit down and put my head in my hands.

       I look out to a lone hill far on the horizon. That’s the laboratory. That’s where I was created. It’s surrounded with failure versions of myself that were deactivated and littered around the lab to warn people off. It seems to be working. So much happened there. But it was so long ago. I stored almost all of those years in my cache memory, so I could always see them.
~
“Open your eyes.”

I do. There is a white room with many computers in it. I am connected to them by wires.

“Hello. Do you know your name?”

“Jonathan.”

“Good. Now, do you know my name?”
“You are Doctor Madison. My creator.”

“Yes. You may call me ‘sister’.”

“Registering Dr. Madison as ‘sister’.”
~

I soon came to call her Madi, and she called me Jon. Her goal had always been the same. To make me like a human.

Suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder. “I thought I’d find you here” I recognize the voice.

“Emile, why did you come looking for me?”

“I needed to talk to you.” He says simply. “So you’re an…”

“Yes. I am an android; half synthetically-made human, half robot. A rare and ancient technology, lost in the Tech Retardation, an event that destroyed all the world’s technology. I am one of the last beings from the time.” I explain “Now, are you gonna sell me to a museum or what?”

“Sell you to a museum!? Why would I do that!?”

“Because I’m so rare. You could make some good money off me.”

“Jon, no matter what you are, you’re still my friend. And friends don’t do that to each other.”

“… What does it mean to have ‘friends’?”

“Oh… so that’s why you always asked those kinds of questions, you can’t understand… y’know, I’m curious, you’ve been around for thousands of years, what’s your story?”

“Well…” I hesitate for a second “One day a lonely scientist, created a humanoid robot. It could only be described as a ‘miracle’. But there was still something missing, something only god can make, it is a “heart”. Several thousand years past, my creator had of course died. But one day, under a great cherry blossom tree we planted together, I made a wish. I want to know who she really was, and why she created me in the first place. Why did she work until her final day to make me a heart? Then… I left the lab, traveled through the woods and came to this world I’d never actually gone to. That was a few years ago, and then I met you, and everyone else.”

“Wow… I’m so sorry…”

“She called me ‘brother’. Could that have to do with why she made me?”

“Well, maybe she had a brother before… it’s very sad to live by one’s self.”

“...”

“Hey, you said it was in the middle of a forest. Is that the lab, in those woods?” Emile points to the hill.

“…Yes.” I reply quietly.

“Well no wonder they try to keep people out. Such amazing technology…”

“I want to go back.”

“Huh?”

“I’m going back to the lab.” I say standing up.

“Wait for me!”
~
“Here it is… my home.”

It was completely white, and filled to the brim with computers, lights, wires, and lot and lots of papers. I flip a switch and everything comes to life.

“Wow…” Emile says in awe.

“None of our modern technology can rival the old world technology.”

“I can tell…” Suddenly the screen of the main computer lights up yellow.

“What the…?” I walk over to it.

“Jon...” a voice says from the computer.

“Madi!?”

“It is my time now. You may never age, but I am a human, and I will die eventually. Now is my time. I know you won’t hear this for a long time, but you’ll come back. I know you will. I know you probably have many questions, so I will answer. The reason you were made… I had a brother once. His name was Jon. He died when he was ten, of a fatal illness. I was devastated. My parents had died shortly before, so I was all alone. I turned our home into a laboratory, and tried to recreate my brother. So you were born.”

“I can’t believe it…”

“I really felt you were my brother, and I was truly happy. But I soon came to realize that you weren’t. I spent the whole of my life trying to allow you to feel, to make you complete, perfect. But it could not be programed. So I realized there was only one way to give you a heart.”

“No… This doesn’t mean…”

“I will give you my heart.”

The lights abruptly turn off, and the screen goes from yellow to green and keeps flashing between the two.

“Jon, I think you have to touch the screen.” Emile says. When I touch the screen, I feel a surge of energy go through my entire body and gather in my chest. It’s so powerful it knocks me against the wall.

Now the gears have begun to turn, another miracle happens. What is this water that flows from my eyes? Why is my body shaking madly? Something in my chest is beating fast. Is this what I had wished for?

Is this what a heart is?

“Jon! Are you okay!?”

“I’m crying… I feel something new inside me… is this sadness? I feel tingly and warm…Is this happiness?” I stand up slowly “And what is this? My hands are shaking, my heart is racing… wait… my HEART IS RACING! I have a heart!”

“Oh my god, it’s a miracle!!”

“Madison’s pure white heart, it’s now mine…” I suddenly fall back to my knees ad sob madly “She gave me her heart… that’s how she died…”

Emile kneels down and pats my back “It’s okay… she knew it’d be best for you… she knew it was the only way…”

“You’re right… it’s the best way…” I stand back up and we go outside.

Mysterious heart of mine, heart of mine, won’t stop

“I never knew how painful all things are…” I stop and scream to the sky.

“You’ll learn that not all things are painful, many things are truly wonderful.”

“Yes, but are the sad things worth it?”

He stopped and thought about it “Hmm… I think… yes. Yes, they are worth it.”

“Happiness, sadness, anger, so many emotions, and I truly understand but… what is this one? My hands are shaking, my heart is racing, I have an unknown emptiness in my chest, and… when I look at you, I feel… wonderful, like I’m complete…”

Emile suddenly stops, and his eyes go wide “Could it be…?” He can’t finish the sentence, because suddenly my whole body stops, everything in me stops. My heart begins to overflow, all my emotions swirl and mix, I laugh and cry and yell and I just become a teenage girl. “Jon, are you okay?”

“Yea, I’m fine (sob)… I just need to (laugh) sit down… I think this heart… I think it might be too much for me…”

“Jon, what are you saying!?”

“Emile, a robot shouldn’t have a heart. I am too simple for it.”

Emile starts crying “No, you are amazing, you are a miracle…”

“Yes, but I’m still not a human, no part of me is a human part except for my heart… it’s… it’s too big for me…”

“No…”

“I can’t… it’s too much.”

“No, but, you can’t… you can’t just…”

“I have no choice…”

“No!”

“Emile…”

“NO!!!”

       I start shorting out.

“Emile… I… I love… you…”