Obie

Obie stood at the end of the world with a tired expression in his eyes. It had been a long time since those eyes saw anything besides the ransacked office that Obie called home, or the pock-marked door that guarded it.  Obie’s gaze swept from one side of the room to the other, blinking when he came to a half-rotational stop. His eyes were hard to see now, made dim with time. The black screen displaying his eyes was cracked and covered in dirt, the white plastic oval that encompassed it faded to grimy grey.

He stood in a corner next to a window, on a trolley whose wheels were locked in place. He wore a brown polo over a wire mannequin stand fixed to the trolley, the previously uniform maroon split in the middle and separated by several shades and years of sun exposure, like muddy freshwater feeding into turquoise sea. Although Obie was close enough to the window to touch it, the rotation of his head didn’t include the outside view.

He temporarily stopped mid-rotation. The motor that made his head turn whirred, creating an unpleasantly loud noise. This happened more often with every passing year. Obie’s cartoon eyes fixed on the skeleton in the middle of the room. It lay on a faded rug next to an upturned chest of toys. All he could do was blink.

One day, his head would stop moving. Then, eventually, he would stop blinking. His cartoon eyes would stay shut, visionless in a dying world. The whirring stopped and Obie’s eyes moved on from the skeleton, once more on their scheduled trajectory from one side of the room to the other, but never outside. Obie blinked.

When he opened his eyes, he saw something new for the first time in decades. The fragile wooden door which guarded the room flung open and two figures tumbled in. They came so suddenly and violently that their very existence seemed wrong. Dust swirled through the air, upset from its resting place on the ground.

A little girl sneezed between lungfuls of dust. An older man closed the door as quietly as possible, quickly peeking his head out into the corridor before he did. With some effort, he grabbed the chest of toys and dragged it in front of the door. He sat on the chest, his face in his hands.

Obie’s head continued to swivel from one side to the other, unfazed by these new developments. Semi-silence ensued, broken by thunderous slapping of feet on pavement somewhere outside.

Obie broke the silence also. His rusted and time-worn hinges squealed when he moved his head from one side to the other. The man gave him a cursory nervous glance, but nothing more. His attention was focused out there.

The little girl was far more curious. She walked over slowly, tentatively. Her hair was the colour of smoke, her eyes sooty grey. A thick layer of dirt caked her face, mingled in some areas with blood. She wore fingerless gloves too big to be her own. She followed Obie’s eyes from one side of the room to the other, and when he blinked she smiled, gap-toothed and gorgeous.

BANG!

The girl’s smile was killed prematurely. She turned back to her companion. The noises outside grew closer.

BANG!

The man looked around the room desperately for some kind of escape, but there was none.

BANG!

This one was only a few metres away from the wooden door. The man beckoned for the girl to climb in the toy chest, and she did what she was told. The lid of the chest closed mere seconds before a group of savages burst in, flinging the chest to a corner of the room.

They spilt in, moving past the chest and straight towards the man. They backed him into a wall, his fists raised but otherwise weaponless. They crowded around him so that Obie could not see. Maniacal giggles erupted from some of the savages, soon eclipsed by the man’s frenzied cries. Hidden behind the wooden door, no noise came from the toy chest. 

After the screams finally stopped, and even a little longer after that, they let the man alone. All that was left of him was his head and a partially eaten torso.

The savages left one by one, scavenging what they could on first glance, until only a handful remained. They scoured the room for the girl, barely noticing Obie in his corner by the window. They kicked at the skeleton and flung aside the carpet, sending millions of recently settled dust motes into the air.

A faint sneeze came from the chest. It was almost concealed by the squeal of Obie’s hinges, but not quite. The savages paused in their search. One of them closed the wooden door, revealing the chest behind. In a burst of movement, they opened its lid and scooped out its treasured contents.  

The young girl screamed and struggled against the savages, and with a look of predatory glee, they dragged her from Obie’s room. They did not cut or bite into her.

One of the savages lingered, captivated for some reason by Obie. She approached the half-dead robot, who could not move nor think nor feel. With an almost gentle delicacy, she touched Obie’s face, leaving a bloody handprint across the screen. She did not smile for Obie before she turned and joined the others. 

And so once again Obie was left alone in this hellish world. He didn’t blink when the savage left a bloody handprint on his face, or when the little girl reached out for his help. He only turned his face from left to right and back again, as he had for time unremembered and would until he died.