A Robot’s Revenge

In the top of a hill, in a house long ago abandoned, there lives a robot. It’s a two story house with a front yard and a chimney. ’Bot has been living there since the bombs fell and the humans disappeared.

The bombs blazed through the cities and the mountains and the valleys. Most robots stayed in the cities, waiting among the dead bodies for somebody–anybody–that would talk to them and tell them what do to. But there were no humans around no more.

Not all robots stayed in the cities, though. At least one robot, tired of following orders, left the city for the country. And there ’bot lives in a house with a dog. The dog doesn’t talk but it doesn’t give orders either.

Every night the robot lights up the fireplace sets up a table with food, with a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine.

And every now and then a lost human, one of the few that survived, sees the smoke coming from the chimney. They make it to the house and they run inside looking for somebody–anybody–to talk to and to warm up against.

The human finds the table set for dinner and eats the bread, and drinks the wine and enjoys a feast like they haven’t had since the bombs. And always they fall asleep right at the table. They fall sleep, not because they are satisfied, but because the wine is not just wine.

When the arsenic has worked its magic and the noises downstairs stop, the robot comes out from hiding.

In the top of a hill, in a house long ago abandoned, there lives a robot. A robot that wants revenge and a dog that likes fresh meat.