Dr. Asimov Sorry. Turns out the machine is growing less and less human. Personal computers gladly repeat what they just said, let you choose the wallpaper. Dump trucks carry their load till there’s a good time to unload, and signal their intentions with orange warning lights. The dashboard GPS continually asks pertinent questions, and cell phones can be turned off at the theatre, whereas your friends. Even simple radios just tell you; cut and dry, or unplugged. But, the umbrella! Push a button, he’s open, squeeze a shoulder, he’s shut. When it rains, I say, I, Robot. Cautions Yellow signs say caution, wet floor?— depict death-by-footstep, walking with his jacket open, the dog off-leash. Yogurt-white barking teeth?—?syringes cocked. The vaccine risky, disease incurable. Wing-tipped avian flu. A feather duvet, and police in the doorway ask questions about the attack: Well officer, supper looked like Loch Ness. Broken wishbone on my soup spoon; pin digs trachea ribs, this injunction called swallowing. Undercooked meat; birth complications; premature kittens. Respect the incubation period. Don’t forget the oven! In case of fire, never go back for the cat. Clogged flues, curtain piled on the register?— an eyelid out of place. Houses, Richmond Street Fewer shutters match, each time you visit?— some blue paired with orange, some green, some off having their own experience. But the windows retain their sills, and the sills are kept clean, and every April women climb flimsy ladders to rag and harangue mildew from awnings over the doors. Every June the street sweeper wishes the sidewalk back to white. Concrete six inches thick, rather than meagre asphalt, so the surface will never crumble (though of course it’s begun a little at the edge). You choose your own house out from the row?—? that house that hangs back from the road, always the last swimmer into the pool, toes drawn up. You walk toward it, past the same forked tree– but now the fork is higher, so boys can’t reach to climb. And men don’t bother.