As I walked back through my front door, I
was met with a decision. Fix the lights, or deal with
the darkness. I opted for the latter; I just wanted to
sit down and relax for a bit, maybe listen to some
music. I felt my way across the entryway to my couch
and laid down, until I began to doze off.
I woke up to a sharp buzz and a click from
across the room. Lazily, I lifted my eyes toward the
source of the noise, and found myself staring into a
pair of bright, pupil-less eyes, like miniature head-
lights. Alarmed, I jolted awake and reached to turn
on the light, but the room stayed dark. Stupid lights,
I should have fixed them earlier. The eyes just sat
there, occasionally whirring or clicking. It didn’t take
long for me to register that it was a bot, but how had
it gotten in? I shuddered; this thing must have fol-
lowed me all the way from work.
I tried to sleep for a few more hours, but
there really wasn’t any use. Those eyes were just
constantly trained on me, observing, recording, re-
porting. I just couldn’t relax. When the day eventu-
ally did come, it was almost worse. The bot followed
me to work, watched all day, and followed me back
again. Again, I didn’t sleep. My work suffered be-
cause of it. As long as my work suffered, the bot kept
watching. I lasted three weeks.
62
It was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t
take it anymore. Either that bot was going to die, or I
was. I ran to my junk drawer, the thing’s eyes trained
on me the whole way. I pulled out a screwdriver, and
smiled at the relief I knew it could bring me. My eyes
darted to the bot. It just sat there, always staring,
never ceasing. Those eyes, the source of my agony,
they needed to die. I couldn’t live another moment
knowing they were still watching. In a blur, I lunged
at it, stabbing it over and over and over with my
screwdriver. With every plunge of my weapon, every
spark, snap, and grind, my smile grew. At that point
it wasn’t even so much about sleep as it was about
killing this thing, this lifeless monster.
It wasn’t long before it was nothing left than
a pile of scraps and torn metal on the carpet. I stared
for a second, then walked over to my couch, practi-
cally dead with exhaustion. Still smiling, I lay down,
closed my eyes, and drifted away.
When I woke up, it was to the sound of a
short click and a buzz. I looked up. Across from me
sat two different pairs of lifeless eyes, both of them
staring intently, simply observing, never blinking.