“Can you tell me about the creators?” The little robot asked, his rusted sensors turned outward in a futile attempt to peer over the wall. Its lead-lined interior deterred any attempts to see beyond, while its slick metallic outer-coating prevented climbing and other, more violent, attempts to pass through it.

The older robot, a tripod contraption with a single lens that zoomed and lost focus seemingly at random, harrumphed. “They look a lot like you, but fleshy. Maybe a bit bigger, too.”

“Fleshy? What does that mean?”

“It means not metal, kid. It means… they’re… made of… uh, flesh, I guess.”

The little robot took a moment to digest that statement. Fleshy meant made of flesh. And flesh was… being fleshy?

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Hooman Beans don’t make much sense, kid. Get used to it.”

“Are they beans?”

“What?”

“The Hooman Beans. Are they beans? I don’t look like a bean, but they look like me.”

“No, no, it’s just a… just a name. They aren’t actually beans.”

“Oh.”

“I think they’re legumes.”

“Oh? Am I legume?”

“Cyber-Jesus kid, no. You’re a robot. Beans and legumes are made of….” The lens zoomed in. “Bean-flesh and legume-flesh, I guess. But forget about that. You want to know about the creators, right?”

“Yes,” the little robot said, folding his hands into his lap. His joints creaked and groaned their thirst for oil.

“Well. They’re fleshy.”

“You said that.”

The lens dilated. “And they created us.”

The little robot nodded very, very slowly. “I assumed as much.”

“Did I mention their flesh? And they look like you?”

“And that they created us. Do you know anything else about them?”

“Ah, why are you even asking if you know all this? Jeez, kids these days… alright, let me see. Did I tell you about the planes?”

“Planes?” The little robot perked up. “No. Please tell me.”

“Big, big things. I was a loader for one, once. Before the, uh, wall went up. They’re like these weird sausage tubes—”

“Sausage tubes?”

“Oh, you know. Those plastic things you shovel meat-flesh into. But anyway, the Hooman Beans cram themselves in these tubes and they roar to life and then shoot off into the sky. Whoooooosh. Like that.”

“That sounds dangerous. Why would they do that?”

“It’s good for travel. Can take them around the world in a day, and Hoomans always have to go places fast. Besides, they aren’t that dangerous. Not so much as other things. Like cars, or guns, or half the stuff they’ve sealed away in here with us.”

“They like to create things, don’t they?”

“’Course they do, they’re the creators. Creating all day, all night, just about every second they aren’t traveling in their tubes or defecating.”

“Defecating?”

“Oh, boy. All the time. They constantly produce waste and are just expelling it all over the place! At home, in public if the urge hits, even in those planes. Then they gotta shovel more fuel in so they can keep doing it!”

“My goodness. That seems awfully inefficient.”

“If there’s a word to describe the Hoomans, it’s inefficient.”

“Such horrible things… perhaps it is good they created the wall to separate us.”

“Preaching to the choir. Now come wheel me back home.”

The little robot stood on creaky legs and wheeled the older robot through the junkyard, away from the wall and deeper into the scrap heaps of home. Muttering to himself, how good it was the Hoomans weren't around to bother them anymore.

​

(Thanks for reading, C&C always welcome!)