Home?

 

He strode through the magnificent double doors, his four arms carrying steaming hot plates of delicious dinners, his smellinators couldn’t resist, the cube head leant forward and had a sniff, and it smelt good. Just then his sensors tingled. A chair leg was in the way. SCRAP moved easily around it, but then then again. A ROG, the latest of robot dogs.

 

With steam fogging up his See’n’Touch sensors SCRAP set down the plates down at Table 669. He made his way back to the kitchen pausing to look at the large Green-Print telling lookers about him. His eyes drooped in sadness, here all he was used for was practically slavery. He was the most efficient bot on the planet. He should be treated better!

 

SCRAP was a robot. His designers, Hexagon Industry, like to boast that SCRAP was the next years model of robot (20001 instead of 2000) SCRAP stood for Super, Clever, Right, Academic, ‘Person’.

 

SCRAP’s head is a cube with Hexagon’s See’n’touch sensors, Vocabulator and Smellinators. The torso was a retangular prism with Hexagon’s label stamped on the far bottom left. His arms were steel that split in half for different jobs with claws on the end for fingers. The legs were also rectangular prism shaped but a lot skinnier and almost 1 meter in length, halfway down are magnetic joints that imitate a human’s knee joint.

 

SCRAP looked up at the poster once more and made his decision...

 

That night SCRAP sneaked past the sleeping Grand Hotel’s Security and walked outside for the first time. He looked around, it wasn’t very tidy. Bits of loose paper blew around obeying a stray wind’s orders. Smelly gases were sucked into his Smellinators and if he was human he would have been wheezing. SCRAP wanted to turn back but didn’t. He started down the musty smelly street.

 

After weeks of walking SCRAP came to Koru-koru Mountain Range. It was a very old mountain and was once called Mt.Ruapehu and it was home the Koru ski team.

 

The shambled robot went into the hut and talked to the Administrator and it was agreed that SCRAP was to be helper to the man in cabin 7. The corridor that led to all the team’s rooms were decorated with great moments for the team. The man’s name was Rob.

 

For the next few months SCRAP served Rob, making Coffee in the morning and Tea when he got back from the Mountain. It was fun but all good things come with bad and Scrap became tired of the work and each night he reassured himself.

“At least at home it was warm”

 

Though one night for the second time that year and he vanished into the night.

 

After weeks of walking SCRAP saw home.

 

And it smelt good!!!

 

Home? By Toby Weston