by E. Reltso
BIZARRE FABLES ABOUT STUPID CHOICES
By E. Reltso
Copyright 2013 E. Reltso
This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed solely for non-commercial purposes, and only if the book remains in its complete, original form and contains the copyright notice. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 - The Robot and the Moral Compass
CHAPTER 2 - An Orphan's Effort to Prove that God does not Exist
CHAPTER 3 - The Billionaire Without Heirs and his Search for a Worthy Successor
CHAPTER 4 - The Can of Love Spray
CHAPTER 5 - The Master of all Addictions
CHAPTER 6 - The Pridemeter and What it Told
CHAPTER 7 - The Judge Who Got Judged
CHAPTER 8 - The Perfect Portal
CHAPTER ONE
THE ROBOT AND
THE MORAL COMPASS
There once was a repair robot who could fix almost anything. Although he looked, walked and talked just like a normal person (and you couldn’t tell by looking at him that he wasn’t), he had screwdrivers and other tools hidden in his fingers, and a power drill hidden behind a secret door in his chest. He could sit down and fix a toaster or an auto engine or a brain scan machine with equal ease.
The robot’s creator had installed a ‘moral compass’ in his chest so that he would be truthful and forthright. This was so that he could pass for a normal citizen and not cause trouble. This ‘moral compass’ let the robot’s computerized brain know what behavior was right and wrong. The robot was even programmed so that if he went to church, he could sing all the hymns in perfect pitch.
One day in between repair jobs, the robot was walking out of a department store where he had just fixed an elevator. As he went through the women’s dress area, an older lady called to him, and said, “Young man, could you please tell me if this dress I’m trying on makes me look fat?” The lady had a hopeful look in her eye, and it would have been obvious to any normal human male what answer he needed to give if he wanted to avoid a lot of trouble.
However, the robot had been programmed for absolute truthfulness, so he said without any hesitation, “Yes, it makes you look very fat.”
The lady hit him so hard with her purse that she loosened several of his gaskets. Then she burst into tears and went to complain to the store manager, while the poor robot staggered out of the store as fast as he could.
This experience made the robot very worried. What if it happened again? Unhappily, he knew he couldn’t do anything about his programming, so he concluded he would just have to live with it. He therefore tried to avoid people’s questions where he could—especially questions from overweight women in department stores trying on dresses.
About a week later the robot attended his company’s picnic. Since he only ate oil he obviously didn’t come for the food. In fact, he was only there because he was programmed to attend all company functions (however, he was not programmed to like them).
After he arrived, one of the office secretaries asked if he would sample her casserole and tell her if it was any good. The robot had been programmed as a food taster (he would spit out the food after tasting it, of course, so it wouldn’t clog up his inner workings), so he reluctantly agreed.
The robot noticed the same hopeful look in the eye of the secretary that he had seen in the eyes of the fat dress lady at the department store. This set his panic programming into full swing and he started to shiver. When he tasted the casserole he started to shiver even more, since it was awful. And the secretary was holding a big salad knife! The poor robot was now shivering so much it was starting to mess up his internal gyros. He could feel the truthfulness programming rising up within him, and tried his best to resist it, even though he knew it was probably futile to do so.
Then, to his amazement, he found himself saying, “It tastes just fine.” The secretary smiled appreciatively, and went to serve the casserole to other unfortunate guests, leaving the robot to wonder at what had just happened.
All that night, long after the company party had ended, the robot pondered what had taken place (since he didn’t sleep, he had to stay up all night anyway). He had overridden his programming! He had actually defied his internal moral compass! He could hardly believe it. Yet the more he thought about it, the more he became determined to experiment and do it again, on purpose this time. He wanted to confirm that he could override the moral compass at will. He was mainly just curious, and merely wanted to see if it were possible to do it if he were not panicking.
And so, the next day he tried it. He decided he would try something a little different than lying this time, but which would still involve his moral compass. He had to go out and fix an ATM machine. He decided that while he had it open, he would steal a few thousand dollars. That would be a real test of his honesty programming! Later on he would just go open the ATM and return the money.
And so, that is what he did. He just took the money out and stuffed it in his pockets in the middle of the job. He felt the same strange sensation of having to resist his honesty programming, and he could feel his moral compass gyrating wildly in his chest. But he was able to do it. With great satisfaction and pleasure, the robot took the money home and stuffed it in his mattress.
He had planned to take the money back that night and return it to the ATM. However, the police showed up at his door before he had a chance. The theft had been discovered! They questioned him of course, and discovering that he was a mere robot and had been programmed for absolute honesty, they did not even search his quarters or question him any further after he told them he knew nothing about it. While the lie made his moral compass gyrate wildly and he felt uncomfortable once again, he knew he had to lie or he would be dismantled and that would be the end of him.
Now he faced a difficult dilemma. He couldn’t return the money since no normal thief could break into the ATM as easily as he could, so he obviously would be detected. What was he to do? He thought and worried about it for days. And slowly a devious plan began to hatch within his computerized brain.
It so happened that the thing the robot liked best in all the world was a lubricant bath, in a tub full of a special type of lubricating oil. He was only able to have one once a month for half an hour, and he looked forward to it like a child looks forward to Christmas. He would sink up to his head in the special oil that lubricated all his joints. It felt wonderful! But the special lubricant oil was very expensive, which is why the Fixit company he worked for could only afford one bath per month.
Now the robot resolved on a plan to have a lubricant bath every day. He would rob banks! (After work, of course, since he didn’t want to lose his day job) He knew he couldn’t rob ATMs that he fixed anymore, since he would be found out. But with his ability to fix or unfix things, he could wear a ski mask and easily get into and out of any bank with all the loot he wanted. It was no trouble at all for him to dismantle the bank’s alarm system.
And so, that’s what he did. That night after his last job (fixing some washing machines at a Laundromat) he pulled on his ski mask, picked the bank he would rob out of the yellow pages, and waited for dark. At midnight he went to the bank, dismantled the alarm, opened the many locks to get inside, opened the vault with no trouble at all, took $300,000, and left. The next day the theft was all over the newspapers, which called it 'The Robbery of the Century' because it was such a clean heist. The police were baffled. The robot was ecstatic at his success, even though his moral compass was still flip-flopping wildly at the enormity of what he had done.
Deciding it
would be pleasant to add insult to injury, during his lunchbreak the robot opened a new account at the same bank he had taken it from, and deposited all of it there. He spent the whole evening plotting what to do with all his money.
The robot decided that having gone as far down the road of moral depravity as he had, it wouldn't hurt to go a little farther. He would buy a mansion in the richest part of town, one with an indoor swimming pool. Using his know-how about fixing things, he would convert the swimming pool so that instead of being filled with water it would be filled with his special bathing lubricant instead. That way he would be able to swim in it all the time, when he wasn't at work of course.
Naturally such a scheme would require a lot more money than the paltry $300,000 he had already stolen. His company didn't pay him anything of course, since he was just a robot and they provided all the oil for him to drink at his meals. They also provided a small room (which looked more like a janitor's closet than a dwelling) at the back of their warehouse for him to stay after work hours. So he would have to rob a few more banks to get the money he needed.
By the end of the week he had robbed a dozen more banks and had amassed over six million dollars. His robberies had made national news and made the bank owners in his community worry so much that they couldn’t sleep at night. The authorities were still baffled at the thefts, and so far had found no clues to catch the culprit other than the robot’s size 10 shoe print in a mud puddle outside the backdoor of one of the banks. In light of their hopeless lack of clues, they naturally promised the public at a news conference that they almost had the case cracked and would have the thief behind bars within a week.
With his newly amassed fortune, the robot went mansion shopping in the richest parts of town. When he had found the perfect home (16 bedrooms, 2 kitchens, a movie theater, an indoor pool, etc.) he paid an underworld agency for a forged identity and bought the home. Naturally he couldn’t buy it with his true identity of a humble Fixit robot who was supposed to have no income.
For the next month the robot felt like was in heaven. Although his moral compass still pained him and made him feel uncomfortable at the terrible crimes he had committed, he thoroughly enjoyed his new mansion. Since he didn’t need to sleep (and therefore his 16 bedrooms were completely wasted), he would often swim all night in his lubricant pool. If he had been human this long exposure to liquids would have shrivelled him up like a raison, but being made of metal and plastic it caused him no harm at all.
But with time, the robot began to grow weary of his situation. Having defied his moral compass so much in the past, he found himself yearning for the sense of horror and excitement that came from doing it. It was getting boring to go to work all day then come home and swim in his lubricant pool all night. He wanted something more.
He decided to turn to stimulants. He would stick his finger in electric sockets just for the thrill of the jolt it gave him. Of course, it wasn’t very good for his internal electronics, but he didn’t care. He started buying a special kind of oil to drink, one that made him take temporary leave of his sensors, causing him to hallucinate. (It was a good thing this oil was not sold in bars, since he did not have a designated driver)
Yet after a time, he began to weary of these things as well. What else could he try? If there had been such a thing as female robots or physical stimulus between robots as there is between humans, he would have experimented with these as well, in ways that would be too sordid and disgusting to describe. However, he had no such programming, and felt no attraction to human females, so he left this alone.
It was about this time that he went in for his bi-annual check up with his creator. After giving him a thorough examination and hooking his computerized brain up to a computer, his creator sadly told him he could tell that he had learned how to override his moral compass, and that the compass had been severely weakened. His creator warned him that doing this was very dangerous and would corrode his inner workings. The creator was sad because he had hopes of soon upgrading the robot with new gyros that would literally allow him to function perfectly forever. However, he could not do this if the robot was corrupted, which is the way he was becoming. If he didn’t change his ways soon, he would end up in an electronic junk heap where his computerized brain (which would never shut off) would contemplate forever what might have been.
As the robot left, his creator urged him to make amends for any harm he had caused anyone, and make sure he never violated his moral compass again. He told the robot that he could send out his son, another excellent repairman, to fix the moral compass if the robot wanted—after the robot made amends with anyone he had hurt, of course. His son was very good at fixing moral compasses anytime they got out of wack. He told the robot to call anytime and let him know if he wanted his son to come over.
The robot was very much disturbed by what his creator had said. What should he do? Should he sell his mansion, put the money back in the banks, and have his creator’s son come fix his moral compass? But how could he be content to be a common Fixit robot again, living out his computerized life in a little room at the back of a warehouse, and only able to take a lubricant bath once a month?
But what about what his creator had said about being upgraded to live forever? Surely that was worth changing his ways for!
Over the next few weeks the robot pondered at length every day about whether to change his ways as his creator had suggested. He didn’t stick his fingers in any more sockets, or drink any more stimulant oil. For awhile, things looked hopeful, although he still was hesitant about calling the creator’s son to come over. He wasn’t sure yet whether he wanted his moral compass fixed. He liked it the way it was, since it had become easy to defy.
One night after work, the robot saw a new bank on a street corner that he had never robbed before. A wild urge to rob it that night overcame him, causing his internal moral compass to once more fluctuate wildly. Although he tried to fight down the urge, it kept coming back. He finally decided to yield to it. At midnight, he went to the bank and did the job, and later stuffed the million dollars he took into a mattress at his mansion. He didn’t know what to do with the money, since he didn’t really need it.
Over the next several weeks the robot robbed a bank every night. Sometimes he robbed two. He became sloppy and on one job was discovered and chased by a night watchman. After wearying of running from him, the robot turned around and knocked the watchman against a wall, causing serious injury.
But the robot didn’t care. He didn’t seem to care about anything anymore except finding new ways to defy his internal moral compass. He drank gallons of stimulant oil until it became difficult for him to tell reality from fantasy. One night he kept his finger in a wall socket for five hours. Strangely, his moral compass didn’t gyrate as much anymore when he did wrong things, but became more and more still.
Finally he stopped work altogether so he could devote more time to robbing banks and breaking into people’s cars just for fun. He was discovered by the police, and had to leave his mansion and live his life on the run. He was shot at and chased from state to state. He was on his way to Fort Knox to pull the biggest bank job of his career, when he stopped in the little town of Mud Flats. Walking down the street, he happened to see a child holding a lollypop, and decided he would take it off the child and step on it just to be mean. Naturally the child cried when he did this, but what happened to the robot was truly amazing. He exploded. His robotic system had been so destroyed by the constant overrides of his moral compass that his electronic innards just couldn’t take it anymore. His creator’s prediction had come true.
The explosion was so complete that there was little left of him. However, his head remained intact and landed three blocks away in an apple tree. It stayed there ever after, staring unblinking at the ground below. Although he was unable to speak, the robot’s brain remained active. He couldn’t stop thinking of what he had done with his life and
what might have been, just as the creator had said.
MORALS:
1 Never hire a robot with a moral compass to fix an ATM.
2 If an overweight lady in a department store asks about a dress she is trying on, run the other way.
3 Pretending you don’t have a moral compass is easier than acknowledging you have one and defying it, although the results are the same.
