Dr Jew

make myself more commodable? Perhaps it was I, not Adam and Eve or Alger, who was inhuman. Not in a Blade Runner -esque is-he-or-isn't-he way, but so driven by obsessions and disciplines that I failed to furnish the true furniture of my sordid brain. My home in that faraway City by the Bay: gone. All that remained was a hobbled collection of videos in a multitude of formats (Super 8, Betamax, VHS, DVD, mini-DVD, USB, etc.) in a storage facility. And I would have outsourced a motley crew to adaptate them to one modern format long ago were it not for the dubious nature of the aforementioned collection, constituting a panoply of medical journeys and interventions that, if taken out of context by a voyeuristic outsider, could be perceived as criminal and bring unnecessary attention from sundry branches of law enforcement officials.
    So storage had been the simpler option, and they were the last clinging piece of my identity. And they remained so far away and out of touch that I was cut off, a different man, and it felt… good. Yes, good, to not be that man. For a time. His creeping shadow and deeds would not disappear easily. I petted my knee and could not forget. All my children, my creatures, dust, except Adam. And why should they go and die? They had many years to spare. And why so painfully in a foul, dehydrated, hungry state? Was I not their keeper? It was so tempting to point to Arnie as the agent of their undoing, but what was he but an extension of my arm? No. No blame outside of this one. I take it all. I too am not what I once was.
    "Hello."
    All cooling night wafted forth from the lake and petrified there on the bench in the park it took a second like Dog Away to domino its full force upon me the impact of that word and the voice it contained, or that contained it I couldn't didn't dare think it I grasped at it and looked around to find it but it was no mystery, there he was, after so many decades of absence, there he sat next to me so still and ageless as if a day hadn't passed. He was there and I dared not breathe or blink lest I trigger something that might sprite him away.
    "Hello," he said again.
    "Is it you?" I said. "Really you?"
    "It is, Jew boy."
    I felt tears in my eyes, so many impossible worlds did he emanate, so many unfoldments and eras, experiences both joyous and horrible, between me and him, and still he sat like a statue, still.
    "Where have you been all this time? So many years and times when I needed you. Where were you, Robot Raccoon?"
    His head rolled on its hinges and sparked occasionally as he spoke. "Always full of questions, you were. Always full and always empty. But I'm being very rude. They are good questions and our questions define us. You do, however, recall that it was you who left me?"
    Had I? My memories from so many decades ago were muddled. "Oh… yes, yes. But the things a boy will do. Who can explain them? You could have tried again. All this time and silence. Seven times seventy. Don't judge a book. Sometimes the engine doesn't know what it needs. Et cetera."
    "Silent, yes," he said, "but present. I have never left your side. And you have done okay without me."
    I scoffed at that. "Done okay? How? Yes, sometimes I think I've done okay, but then I look in a mirror and what do I see? A joke, a crackpot. Unable to connect to others. Only learning now what others are born knowing."
    "But you are learning. Change is inevitable."
    "And what brings you out of hiding after all this time? I don't even know how to talk to you anymore. You make me feel young and stupid again."
    "You don 't have to worry about that. You can't go back. Not really. Why am I here? I'm not sure. I think you have a greater say in when we meet than I do."
    "What are you saying? That I somehow called you into being by process metaphysical to aid me like a guardian angel at this point in my being? Bah! Rubbish. I cast you off as a boy when your magical thinking served me not. I certainly don't need you now."
    "What do you need?"
    "You want to know? Really?"
    "I already know. I want you to realize that you do in fact know."
    "Of course I know. I want a family."
    "Yes. Good."
    "And do you know why? " I said. "Because I've gone all my life through the ratiocination process that let me think that I had to do something to get certain results. And that made me into something I can barely stand. I couldn't see that doing was less important than being. And I could be whatever I wanted to be as soon as I started