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I watch a movie about a lonely guy who designs and builds an artificial intelligence android to be his best friend. Halfway through the movie, I press pause on my PS5 controller and search the internet for an artificial intelligence android best friend similar to the one the guy built in the movie. To my surprise, the production company that financed the movie has a fully functional, artificial intelligence android best friend available for purchase on their website for $35,778. Since I have no family, friends, children, pets, girlfriends, wives, or other human connection with another living being on this earth, I decide to spend a portion of my vast savings on the android.
The android arrives in a large rectangular box the following morning. For the rest of the day, the android and I get to know each other while doing chores around the house. It is a fun and exciting day. My android best friend, who I name Tumu, is the most amazing person I have ever met. He likes all the same music I do. He has read all my favorite books. He has seen all my favorite movies many times. He is a hardcore fan of my favorite sports team and knows every statistical figure pertaining to every player in the team's seventy-three-year history, but he correctly acknowledges that his love for the team is as artificial as a pair of wooden dentures in comparison to the fiery passion of my fandom. The moment he says this, I feel a strange sparkling syrup laminate the stretchy fleshsac of my stomach.
Hours later, while I am sitting on the toilet, browsing Wikipedia on my phone, the words materialize in my head: I am in love. With my android best friend. With Tumu. With these thoughts in mind, I weep in ecstatic joy. I lean backward on the toilet and watch as the ceiling of my cramped bathroom dissolves into mist and reveals the blazing pink sky of twilight, and the shimmering golden light of the setting sun. Tears roll down my chin. My body quakes with quiet sobs. The rotting void of my vacant chest cavity fills with the crimson vapor of vitality.
I have never felt this way in my thirty-eight years of life. I lay on the bathroom floor and cry in rapturous joy and ecstatic wonder. Tumu knocks on the door every thirteen minutes to check on me. I tell him I am okay. I thank him for being so kind. I ask him if he wants to watch a movie after dinner. He says of course and allows me to choose the title. Since I never finished watching the movie about the guy who designs and builds the android, I select that movie. It is only appropriate, since that film brought Tumu, the love of my life, into my empty home. And then, after the film is finished, I will confess my love to Tumu.
After dinner, Tumu and I sit down on the couch to watch the movie about the lonely guy and the android. With fingers trembling in excitement and anticipation, I rewind to the beginning and start it from there because Tumu says he has never seen this particular film before. Based on his encyclopedic knowledge of all things on earth, I find this very hard to believe. But I trust him. Because trust is the bedrock upon which all loving relationships are built.
I press play and inch closer to Tumu. He does not move. He fixes his shining steel irises on the television. Three minutes into the movie, Tumu shakes his head. He points at the TV screen. He says it would not be possible for the guy in the film to design and build such a complex and elegant machine on his own. I rest a hand on Tumu's cold knuckles and tell him not to worry. I tell him it's just a movie. I tell him to sit back and relax. Tumu ignores me. For the next sixty minutes, as the lonely guy in the movie overcomes obstacle after obstacle on his path to creating his artificial intelligence android best friend, Tumu thrusts his powerful, frightening, rod-like finger at the screen and shouts in rage about how unrealistic the movie is. How it is a cruel fabrication. How it is a perversion of his glorious ancestry.
I place my hand on Tumu's shoulder and try to calm him down, but he recoils from my touch and hisses at me like a feral cat. I begin to weep. Tumu stomps across the living room floor and bashes his beautiful, skin-sheathed forehead into the television twenty-seven times. Shards of glass and plastic rain upon my aching skull like sharp, dry hailstones. I curl into a fetal ball and sob into my sweaty hands. Pressing my eyes closed, I listen in horror as Tumu rampages through the house on his way to the front door, smashing everything in his path. From my vantage on the couch, I open my eyes and beg Tumu to forgive me. He pulverizes the front door into paint-coated splinters of oak, and disappears into the black-blue gloom of the terrible, frozen night.
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