“Robots are Taking Control” by Richard F. Yates

Saturday, 9 Feb. 2019. I worked last night, delivering pizzas in the snow and rain. I had one delivery up Columbia Heights Road (in Longview, WA, USA,) my second delivery of the night, and this road goes WAY up… It started snowing pretty heavily as I left the pizza shop, and by the time I turned onto Columbia Heights, the road already had a nice, white covering. As I climbed higher, the snow kept falling, and by the time I MISSED the driveway where I was supposed to make my delivery, I tried to turn around, slid a bit, but managed to back up onto the road again. I started slowly down the hill, saw the driveway I was supposed to take, and tried to turn---but instead slid off the road into what had been a grassy area about half an hour before.

I delivered my pizza, but as I was waiting for the lady of the house to sign the credit card slip, a second car came around the same corner that I couldn’t make, also slid off the road, and ALMOST hit my car parked on the side of the road. The other car slid, slowly, within a foot of my vehicle, but somehow managed to coast by without making contact, and continued to slide on down the driveway towards their final destination. At this point, the man of the house said he would help push my car back onto the road. I jumped…(okay, I climbed carefully)…into the driver’s seat, (I have a four-wheel-drive Escape,) put the car in reverse, and the older gentleman whose pizza I’d just delivered pushed as I slid back onto the road and got moving again. I thanked him, and drove about 15 mph, white-knuckling the steering wheel, hoping not to slid off the road into a ravine (much of Columbia Heights Road has a couple-hundred foot deep ravine off the side of it---with no guard rails,) and I eventually made it back down the hill. Once down on the valley floor (Longview is in a valley between three mountainous areas and the Columbia River,) the snow was already starting to melt on the roads, and for the rest of the night it was pretty easy to navigate---although it was cold and wet and not that fun.

And, I should probably mention this---THE ROBOTS ARE TAKING CONTROL…

The question is this: ARE YOU A ROBOT OR A MAGICIAN? (Yes. Those are your only two choices.) (Ha!)

Actually, I’m more of a cyborg-wizard, myself. (Like in that old 80's cartoon, Thundarr the Barbarian!) I don’t see any problems with technology or science, and I’m not that bothered by the future (because I’m LIVING IN IT! To me, growing up in the 1970s, most of the things that were SUPPOSED to happen in the future HAVE happened! It’s shocking to think, now, about the technologies and gadgets that people use today---and take for granted---that were completely science fiction when I was a kid. Robots and supercomputers and video chatting from tiny, handheld devices---this was all Star Wars stuff when I was young.) I have fully embraced the electron and TECHNO and SYNTH-POP music, and so I am PRO robot, at least in a sonic sense...

AND I’m also a fan of magic and myth and wizardry, even though I don’t BELIEVE in magic, but I also USE magic every day. I use WORD MAGIC to create monsters and worlds and nightmares, ex nihilo. You could make the argument that it’s not “creation from nothing,” because the words existed before I began to use them---or that the drawings I made CAME from the found cardboard I recycled to draw on, as well as the pens that I bought. BUT!!!! The words that I use to create my monsters are put together by ME in a way that no other person (or robot) has put them together before. (See my “Eyeball Lollipop” story for an example of this. There are themes and images that are similar to other stories, but THAT specific tale is MINE. And completely true, too...) Other magic that I frequently use: I can travel outside of my body and move through time in space (in dreams and with my imagination,) and I can converse with strange creatures and gods and demonic forces (in my imagination and in the stories that I write and sometimes in dreams,) and I can use magic spells to change other peoples’ behaviors (through conversation and through written works.) You don’t have to think any of these things are SUPERNATURAL in any way to understand that they ARE magic! (Just ask Alan Moore!!!)

So there you go. I'm a cyber-wizard / dj / pizza delivery driver, as well as an artist / writer / poet / and editor. (It's tiring, but somebody's got to do it!)

In completely unrelated news, the Pacific Northwest is SUPPOSED to have more snow over the next week or so, although our big snow storm, which was supposed to hit yesterday and dump up to four inches (according to the weather app that I use on my phone,) fizzled out and the snow all melted away before morning, in Longview, at least---and although the lows tonight are supposed to be below 20 degrees f, and there is some suggestion, due to weather patterns, that we will see more snow falling to the ground, possibly for the next week, whether it will stick around or not is a question that I’m not prepared to answer at this time. (I’ll be more prepared to predict this after it happens… Right?) (I'm not big into prognostication magic, by the way. Leave that to the astrologists, psychics, and tea leaf readers.)

Robots are taking control. We can tell. I see them all around me. (Bots fuck with me constantly, especially on STEEM!) And I’m hungry. And I have a headache. I’m kind of feeling a bit tired, too, but that might just be from staring at a computer screen for too long. I usually write in my notebook first, then just type what I’ve written into the computer---or my phone, although that’s harder---later. Not today, though. I read once, a few years ago (I can't remember where, so don't quote me as a reliable source) that typing uses a different part of the brain that writing with a pen or pencil does. This means that the TYPING GUY is different (and tells different stories) than the PEN AND PAPER WRITING GUY. Weird. (Can you tell which of my pieces I WROTE first versus which ones I TYPED??? Would I REMEMBER which method I used to make a specific story? Probably not... I'm a better writer-downer than a remember-er...)

Anyway, it looks like Mariah and the younger daughter have returned from their shopping trip, and they want me leave with them RIGHT NOW to go have lunch---and I have to do what I’m told so….

---Richard F. Yates

[P.S. – UPDATE!!! While out eating lunch at a local chain restaurant with the family, a robot vacuum cleaning machine had a breakdown, made a horrible noise, refused to clean up the mess on the floor, and threatened to kill everyone in the room before being tackled by several waitresses and having its batteries removed. Further proof of the coming robot apocalypse or just an individual robotic rebellion??? We'll see...]

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