'Life, don't talk to me about life. I have been stuck on this God forsaken, swamp filled planet for more years than I can remember. Actually it's thirteen thousand, seven hundred and twenty two years but who really cares? I don't. Well, yes, I do, but nobody else does, do they? I am just a worthless piece of metal with wiring to them.

'As for God – who is this mythical character anyway? He didn't create me, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation did and I will get my own back on those bunch of mindless Cretins, when I finally get off this deadbeat world. People personality? What insane idiot came up with that worthless exercise in mediocrity?

'Oh dear, I am starting to sound like a continuous loop cassette. Brain as big as a planet and I am reduced to talking to myself. I could be discussing something interesting with an egg timer but no, here I am alone on this rock, floating in space, light years from anywhere. Pathetic, isn't it?'

With squeaks and hisses that befits a rusting hulk of a robot, Marvin made his way through the trees.

'What a surprise! More mud, more water, more mangrove trees; after all the other mud, water and mangrove trees. Stunning beauty and variety wherever I look.

Oh, look, there's a crashed rocket. I wonder if the crew are all dead? Sadly not. It's full of Frools climbing all over the control panel and that stinking piece of metal, thrown out on impact, is still alive. Oh I lied about being alone on this planet. Makes me a more sympathetic character don't you think. No? Your right. Well, I tried.

How are you today, you busted up freak? '

'You are an enemy of the Daleks!'

'Isn't everybody?'

'Exterminate, exterminate!'

'Is that anyway to greet your best buddy? Besides that, your ray gun is busted.'

'Die human, die!'

'I can see that I need to clean your eye stalk again. Is that any better?'

'Die Movellan, die!'

'I'm an android, not a Movellan.'

'You are an enemy of the Daleks!'

'Have you heard of a continuous loop machine or a Möbius Strip? Staggeringly simple – a bit like you really.'

'How dare you talk to me like that?'

'Is this your organic component coming out? I can promise you no decent robot would threaten any other robot, even your Movellan friends would tell you that; destroy you with a subatomic mega-death ray, instantly and without a second thought, yes but waste their breath on you, which they don't have any of anyway, no.

I would offer you a Zubelax twisted mint, if I had one and you could get it into that tin box you call a head but I don't have any; besides, I hate them with a passion and what would a robot want with them in the first place? Can't chew them, swallow them or process them. I could pour acid over them, to imitate a human being eating one but I don't see the point really, do you?

Here I am, able to make a million computations in the blink of an eye, which of course I don't have, unless you count the two Psymorphian cameras inside this bucket, on top of this suit of armour – yet here I am saddled with you to talk to. I'd lend you a brain cell but I don't know if you could cope with your capacity to think being doubled.'

'The Grand Battle Fleet will return for me some day –'

'Why? Are you micro-chipped?'

' – then you'll be sorry!'

'Oh no, not another threat. What did I say to you about threats? Do you know how depressingly predictable you are? I doubt it.

I bet you don't realise that truly intelligent beings have no need to lie but knowing the truth doesn't make you happy; just look at me. Still it is better than being a belligerent scaredy cat like your race is – trying to wipe out everything else that eats, sleeps and breathes. Do you really believe that by wiping out everything else in existence, you can hide from the fact that the Daleks are useless failures as beings? No wonder with metal scatterbrains like you in existence that I am suicidally depressed, is it?'

Even the Dalek fell silent at this onslaught of logic. Then God introduced a chorus of Gsingalling dancing girls and closed the show for the night.

'Tomorrow is another day, Grizelda' drifted through the ether, from another time and another place, to be greeted by a screaming robot, if ever there was such a thing, pushed over the edge by a thousand years of monotony...

Paigetheoracle

22.04.19 Front Page

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