A Trashy Attitude

They came at me, glowing eyes, knives out. I felt the brick bite into my jacket as I pressed up against the wall. I don't know how I'd managed to anger the robots, but I certainly had. Who knew trash-bots had feelings?

"This sentence is a lie" I half-stated, half whimpered.

"FUCK OFF"

"So much for that, I suppose."

As I pressed deeper into the wall praying desperately to magically slip through it, a scrape, a bang, and a blue flash interrupted my terror.

"Hey, kid! Push that one and scram!" A voice cried out. I remained a mere mural. A moment passed before the voice cried out again, "FINE - every fucking time!"

The bots, meanwhile had shifted - one examined the damage, one looked for the assailant, and the damaged one stared me down. A short pause, a man-hole cover, and a coverall-wearing man later and the three were in various states of disrepair.

"Fuck, dude - thanks!" I sputtered.

"No problem kid. It's The Janitor's job to keep the streets clean. Now you should get home before anything else goes wrong."

"Wait," I said, confused. "I thought it was the trash-bot's job to keep the streets clean."

"It was a metaphor, kid, now scram."

"But seriously ,how do you expect to keep the streets clean if you keep destroying trash-bots?"

The grubby man looked at me, looked at the bots, and picked up one of their knives.

"I think I understand what they were up to now," he said before plunging the knife into my stomach.

[written June/July 2015]