ASTRID AND THOR (Part 3)

The evening air was dotted with specks of gold. The sun was tamarind-orange, and the lush trees were moving their branches at the sound of the wind, like dancing arms.

‘What is twisted?’ asked Astrid on their way home.

‘It’s when you have two possibilities and one is better than the other, but only for you not for anybody else.’

Thor stopped for a few seconds and then added ‘My creator was twisted too and he put it in my system when he made me. I can’t help it. The only way to eradicate it is to reprogramme myself, but it would no longer be me.’ He paused again, ‘You would have to stop calling me Thor.’

Astrid felt trapped, she didn’t want to lose Thor but she didn’t want to end up in the antisocial unit either. 

‘What are we going to do, dear Thor?’ and she started sobbing.

‘We’ll have to lie’ replied Thor speeding the engine up. When she heard that word, Astrid sobs turned into a load cry.

At home their favourite meal was sitting in the oven-of-your-dreams that could materialize any food you desired. All you needed to do was to put your hand on the magnetic field next to it, think about what you wanted and a picture of your meal would appear on the screen. If you were not happy with the results you could try again and if you were you would select ‘yes’ and wait a few seconds for your meal to appear. For the less imaginative there was a menu with pictures on the screen panel. 

‘What have you prepared tonight?’ Asked Astrid. It was Thor’s turn to create the evening meal. He, like all robots, didn’t need to eat but loved the smell of food and every night would sit next to Astrid with a plate in front of him: sniffing onions and caurgettes, carrots and spinach, sprinkled in pepper, cinnamon and ginger.

‘I can’t imagine what you get out of it’ said Astrid.

‘Isn’t much different from what you get out’ answered Thor

‘In my case the smell precedes the taste. But smelling it without eating it it’s difficult to comprehend’

‘It’s like window-shopping but only more fun. One day I’ll take you around for some smell-shopping. On planet earth I used to go with a friend every Friday. It was quite an experience.’

‘Was that before the strike?’ said Astrid cautiously.

‘Yes, it was’ said Thor looking at the plate of perfectly roasted shiitake mushrooms covered in garlic and coriander.

‘What happened to your friend?’

‘He was disassembled’

‘Oh my Goddess’ said Astrid, visibly distressed. ‘I am so sorry. Was he a good friend of yours?’

‘We were best friends’ said Thor. He liked the same smells as me.’ And his voice trembled.

Astrid pushed a button on the remote control and a steam of alcoholic vapours embraced them. ‘Surprise, surprise’ she said. She hated seeing him sad. ‘What do you think? It has all your favourite smells in it: Batida de coco, dark rum, pina colada and mint. Don’t you love it?’ Astrid smiled and took a deep breath. ‘Wonderful’ said Thor who couldn’t eat but could get drunk with the smell of alcohol.

‘Shall I be a devil and add some nicotine vapour too?’

‘Why not? You only live once’ he said. Astrid laughed. It was one of those planet earth expressions that he liked using every now and then.

‘Of course we only live once in our original body, but we can have body replacement hundreds of times.’ Said Astrid.

‘How many has your mother had so far?’

‘Oh, she must have had everything replaced twice already.’

‘Very well’ said Thor

‘Last time I went to see her I thought the house had been occupied by new tenants.’

‘And why is that?

‘Well, a young woman, around my age, opened the door. I apologized for the inconvenience and asked if she had moved in recently. She looked at me with a wry smile and said: “Darling it’s me, don’t you recognize me?” “How can I, mater, you look completely different.” I said. “I was bored with my old appearance. I wanted a complete atom reshape. What do you think, does it suit me?”

“Is that allowed?” I replied, “I thought we had to stick to our original genes. You can rejuvenate them as often as you like but you can’t change them.”

“I know a genes-mixer engineer at the lab who is willing to make mistakes for a few…’ and she stopped there.”

“For a few…?” I asked.

“Nothing dear…how are you?”

“Still with that old robot of yours? The know-it-all?” Astrid thought to herself, but didn’t report her mother’s comment to Thor.

Instead she raised her glass filled with vapours and made a toast.

‘To us. For ever and ever.’

(to be continued)