Heatwave

An elegant looking robot stood on the street, carrying a shamisen. She took off her lily pad hat in what some may have thought to be a bow. Until she opened her mouth.

“Look at what the goddamn heat did to my hat!” she screamed, showing the hat to a startled passerby. “It’s withering away!”

The robot, Lily Pad, threw the hat on the ground, the fuchsia flower dropping a few petals on the ground. “And now I’ll have no balance to walk! I’ll stumble all over without it!”

No one responded, but there was a good stream of people avoided her side of the street. Lily Pad continued, in her shrieking tone, “Why does it have to be so fucking hot? My gears slow down from the humidity so I can’t play as well and sometimes my ocular functions fog up because everything inside is working so hard!”

She paused dramatically, green eyes staring at the clear, bastard blue sky. “What kind of creator makes a robot designed for a cooler climate? I’m a robot, shouldn’t I be able to function at my full capacity everywhere? I should be able to play my fucking shamisen under the fucking sea if I wanted to. And if my fucking shamisen would even work under the fucking sea which it fucking can’t.”

Exhaling, Lily Pad picked up her hat and placed it on her head again. “I can’t even walk at full speed in the fucking heat. I can’t even walk straight because my stupid goddamn hat keeps wilting all over the place. There’ll be no petals left on this flower by the end of the day, you know. I’ll be walking home without that little pink part that’s so fucking cute.”

She pouted, but tried to play her shamisen. It let out one loud note, but nothing more. She spoke slowly with no emotion. “The gears in my hands are not moving quickly enough. And neither is my god damn mouth.”

She tried again. One note came out and, after a long pause, another higher note played. Lily Pad dropped her hands to her sides, holding the shamisen limply in her hand. Again, her she spoke slowly without the anger she had before. Her gears just couldn’t take anymore yelling. “I just tried to get out” she paused “to play the day away” another pause “but I can’t even move.”

She lowly raised her head to the sky again. She continued, “I think I’ll” a pause “just go home.”

Lily Pad slowly drifted into the crowd, walking at a slower pace than the rest.

And the street was left in silence.








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This commission is for the Jaliofie of Gaia Online.
This adorable character Lily Pad belongs to her.