I Present to You

By Reverie Quist

The stiffness in my metal joints tells me there’s a chill in the air. I look up, and a flake of snow falls on my sight-sensor. Thin steel wipers swipe it away, sending it onto the miles-long heap of rubbish and waste—forgotten objects from a faraway world, once loved, now cast into the realm of Lost Things.

I watch the snowflake fall on a crushed tuna can among the heap—an object that resembles the shape of my head.

Glitch detected, my internal display reads. Presence of emotion: sympathy.

“Oh, dear.” I sigh.

Emotions, speech peculiarities… Is it the cold making me glitch like this?

“What is it, Rivert?” Magnus pops up from behind a dented cold-shelf our records call a ‘refrigerator.’ “Have you found something interesting?”

I approach him on wheels tucked in caterpillar treads, my torso bobbing over the uneven ground. “That’s just it, Magnus. We find so many interesting things, but none have any life left. It’s rather depressing.”

Magnus, head and torso of spheres and limbs of gooseneck cable, scratches his nonexistent chin. “Perhaps they need batteries.” He bends over the refrigerator and opens its door. “Hello! Do you need batteries? Do not panic. We are here to assist you!”

I shake my head and stoop to pick up a case neatly stuffed with paper—a “book,” the records say. “I’ve tried that. Batteries don’t help.”

Magnus climbs over the refrigerator and sits beside me. “Then what would fix them?”

I gaze around at the wreckage, searching for an answer. “Can they be fixed after they come here?” I pick up a wooden block with letters painted on it. “Did Headquarters send us to the waste heaps only to make them bigger?”

Magnus takes the block and turns it over quizzically. “I do not think that was our directive. But… I do not quite remember.” He raises the object over his head. “The snow is inhibiting my processor.”

I nod. “That must be the problem.”

“Fellas!” A chipper beep sounds from the ground next to us. The pile shifts, and two coiled arms poke into view, lifting our cohort Twine up and out. “I got a good one!” All springs and gears, Twine scrambles toward us, holding something bright and colorful in his grippers.

“Oh my!” I drive closer and stare at the strange find. It’s another cube, a bigger one wrapped in cheery paper with a flat red string—ribbon—tied in a bow around it.

“What is it?” Magnus pokes the cube.

Twine’s face lights up, then flickers as several sizable snowflakes land on his head, instantly melting from the heat of his wires and dripping through his parts. “I believe it is a…” He ponders, then throws his hands in the air, sending the cube flying toward me. “Oh, shucks, I forgot!”

I reach up and catch the decorative box. It doesn’t feel empty. I turn it over and shake it. Something thumps inside.

We all look at each other, sight-sensors glowing with curiosity.

“Does it open?” Magnus inquires.

“Oh! Yes! Try that!” Twine bounces, his springs giving giddy creaks. “Just pull the… the… Oh, shucks.”

“Ribbon?” I point to the bow.

“That!” Twine nods and claps his grippers.

Holding the cube against my chest with one pronged hand, I pull at the ribbon. It slides away, revealing a split in the paper. Excitement buzzes through me, as if I’d just found a new oil can, repaired a damaged friend, replaced a light bulb, or maybe even discovered a glimmer of life in a wilderness of dead things.

Carefully, I work my rusty prong through the split and peel back the paper, finding the box’s lid underneath. I take the lid off, and we see what’s inside.

It’s smallish, brown, oddly shaped, and… fluffy. It’s got little round sight-sensors, a big brown smell-sensor, semicircle sound-sensors on its head, arms, legs, and a red and white ribbon around its neck, tied just like the ribbon on the cube. The records say these characteristics typically belong to something alive. But it’s not moving, not breathing… Not alive.

Just like everything else.

Twine and Magnus “oooh!” in unison.

Twine snatches the object and holds it up like a grand prize. “Wow! A… uh…” He lowers it again. “Shucks, what is this thing?”

Magnus takes it from him and examines it.

“No clear function… and yet…” He prods at it, hums, then holds it out to me. “This does not seem broken, Rivert. Take a look.”

I shake my head, joints stiffening as the snow covers me with a layer of frost. “I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is broken, Magnus,” I wail, speech cords shivering in the icy air. “It’s not alive. And if that’s all there is to this world, what can we do?”

Magnus hushes. Twine grows still.

The icy mist around us settles, revealing a faint sparkle in the blanket of white covering the sea of discarded things.

Magnus blinks, then steps forward and puts it in my hands, a newfound clarity in his face. “Just hold it.”

I sigh, accepting it, and hold it close.

Glitch detected.

A warm, delicate surprise suddenly flickers inside me. It’s faint, but powerful.

I look down at the object in wonder. I don’t want to let go.

“Oh!” Twine exclaims. “Right! It is a present! Records said so.”

“Huh,” I say, looking between Magnus and Twine, pressing the soft absurdity to my chest. “It’s rather… pleasant. What is its purpose?”

Magnus’s sight sensors glow happily at me. “Evidently, what it is doing now.”

I hold up the present as snow falls on its fuzzy head. “Then… it’s not broken at all.”

My internal display blips. Item found: teddy bear. Condition: new. Error. Correction—Condition: loved. Indication: life nearby.

Life? I must be glitching again. The present isn’t…

Wait… it means me.

Life found. Directive accomplished.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Reverie Quist is a theater nerd, a guacamole-aholic, the proud owner of a stuffed gnome named Fuzzbert, and a spec fic writer who had a little too much fun coming up with this pen name. She’s been making things up since she was a small gremlin, and now that she’s a less-small gremlin, she can’t help but write about those make-believe things. She actually can’t stop writing. It’s a problem. (Please send guacamole.)

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