This is Rated PG-13
I'm excited to start my internship at the White House, and I'm walking down a corridor to my new office when I see a door with a sign that reads "President's Private Robot Party!!!" I hear giggling coming from behind the door. I walk past the door and go to my office.
My office is full of chalkboards, and a bare lightbulb swings from the ceiling. An empty giant wire spool serves as my desk, and a small broken mirror leans against one corner. There is a high window, and when I look out of it, I realize I am either on the top floor of an insanely tall high-rise, or in low-earth orbit. This causes me to think of a joke I can use when I give tours of the White House, and I go and practice it in front of the broken mirror.
"Welcome to the Starship Enterprise, I mean the White House, hah hah hah." I straighten the elaborate turban I am wearing on my head and decide that the joke is not funny and rather out of date.
A boy with a loosened tie bursts into my office, followed by a girl in a party dress. They drunkenly hail me and tell me that I'm invited to the President's robot party. They grab my hands and pull me out of the office and down the hall.
The President's robot party is decorated as if for a small child's birthday. Crepe paper hangs from the walls and multicolored balloons have begun to sink as they lose their helium grip on the ceiling. Everyone in the room is visibly under 25, and I wonder where the President is. Then, out of a back room, a man in a homemade cardboard robot suit bursts into the party, Kool-Aide man style. "How's everybody doinnnn!!!???" he yells. The kids respond, "Yaaaay, the President!" and everyone crowds around him. "Storytime!!" he yells. Everyone sits down at his feet. The two people that pulled me into the room station me right at the front.
Robot President produces a Bible from the inside of his cardboard suit. His voice is boomy and muffled inside of the box on his face, which doesn't appear to have any breathing holes or eyeholes cut into it. He opens to what he describes as, "his favorite Bible story."
"And the Lord said unto his children on Earth, there is nothing written in my system of rules that denies you from making love to a machine of your own creation. If thou dost meet a robot, and that robot fancies you, you shall use the tools you have wrought in my Name, such as screwdrivers and oil, to give that robot pleasure, for he is a Messenger sent from my Heaven."
I felt like the President was looking at me, but told myself he wasn't actually looking at anything because of the box on his face. I looked around the room, and the other people were all gazing at him with raptured love. I had long since given up the idea that this was a joke, and was starting to get scared and look for any way I could leave. I scooched my way over to the side of the crowd and quietly began to stand.
"You there," the President said. His big, cardboard arm was pointing right at me. "The robot chooses you." Stricken with fear, I hesitated before I started running for the door, but the crowd held me back until the President got me. With the help of the crowd, he pulled me into the back room. The crowd thundered with applause as the door shut tightly and locked from the outside.
The dusty, stuffy room looked like it had once been a real Presidential office. It made me sad to see it in such disrepair. The "robot" held me down and essentially raped me, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was just so sad and scared and trapped that I became totally numb. I remember focusing on how it smelled in there and how the shaft of light coming in from the window illuminated part of a cobwebby portrait of a dignified-looking official I was sure I used to be able to recognize, but now couldn't.
When the robot President was finished, he took off his robot suit. He straightened his red tie and asked me to leave first. I shakily got to my feet and walked out a different door. I headed back to my office, where inside, on the chalkboards, I recognized my own handwriting, as if I had been writing on them for a long time. I felt like I had missed a large gap in time.
Before I shut my door, the President hurried up the hall. I looked at him, and he stopped. Behind us was an open door full of officials having a meeting. In a loud, conspicuous voice, he ordered me to bring some papers he had given me to an office in 20 minutes. He had never given me any papers, so I knew what he wanted. He walked off. I shut the office door, sat on my giant spool, and started writing on the next chalkboard.
My office is full of chalkboards, and a bare lightbulb swings from the ceiling. An empty giant wire spool serves as my desk, and a small broken mirror leans against one corner. There is a high window, and when I look out of it, I realize I am either on the top floor of an insanely tall high-rise, or in low-earth orbit. This causes me to think of a joke I can use when I give tours of the White House, and I go and practice it in front of the broken mirror.
"Welcome to the Starship Enterprise, I mean the White House, hah hah hah." I straighten the elaborate turban I am wearing on my head and decide that the joke is not funny and rather out of date.
A boy with a loosened tie bursts into my office, followed by a girl in a party dress. They drunkenly hail me and tell me that I'm invited to the President's robot party. They grab my hands and pull me out of the office and down the hall.
The President's robot party is decorated as if for a small child's birthday. Crepe paper hangs from the walls and multicolored balloons have begun to sink as they lose their helium grip on the ceiling. Everyone in the room is visibly under 25, and I wonder where the President is. Then, out of a back room, a man in a homemade cardboard robot suit bursts into the party, Kool-Aide man style. "How's everybody doinnnn!!!???" he yells. The kids respond, "Yaaaay, the President!" and everyone crowds around him. "Storytime!!" he yells. Everyone sits down at his feet. The two people that pulled me into the room station me right at the front.
Robot President produces a Bible from the inside of his cardboard suit. His voice is boomy and muffled inside of the box on his face, which doesn't appear to have any breathing holes or eyeholes cut into it. He opens to what he describes as, "his favorite Bible story."
"And the Lord said unto his children on Earth, there is nothing written in my system of rules that denies you from making love to a machine of your own creation. If thou dost meet a robot, and that robot fancies you, you shall use the tools you have wrought in my Name, such as screwdrivers and oil, to give that robot pleasure, for he is a Messenger sent from my Heaven."
I felt like the President was looking at me, but told myself he wasn't actually looking at anything because of the box on his face. I looked around the room, and the other people were all gazing at him with raptured love. I had long since given up the idea that this was a joke, and was starting to get scared and look for any way I could leave. I scooched my way over to the side of the crowd and quietly began to stand.
"You there," the President said. His big, cardboard arm was pointing right at me. "The robot chooses you." Stricken with fear, I hesitated before I started running for the door, but the crowd held me back until the President got me. With the help of the crowd, he pulled me into the back room. The crowd thundered with applause as the door shut tightly and locked from the outside.
The dusty, stuffy room looked like it had once been a real Presidential office. It made me sad to see it in such disrepair. The "robot" held me down and essentially raped me, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was just so sad and scared and trapped that I became totally numb. I remember focusing on how it smelled in there and how the shaft of light coming in from the window illuminated part of a cobwebby portrait of a dignified-looking official I was sure I used to be able to recognize, but now couldn't.
When the robot President was finished, he took off his robot suit. He straightened his red tie and asked me to leave first. I shakily got to my feet and walked out a different door. I headed back to my office, where inside, on the chalkboards, I recognized my own handwriting, as if I had been writing on them for a long time. I felt like I had missed a large gap in time.
Before I shut my door, the President hurried up the hall. I looked at him, and he stopped. Behind us was an open door full of officials having a meeting. In a loud, conspicuous voice, he ordered me to bring some papers he had given me to an office in 20 minutes. He had never given me any papers, so I knew what he wanted. He walked off. I shut the office door, sat on my giant spool, and started writing on the next chalkboard.