Listen If you are alive and haven’t left for greener prairies and if anyone is listening here’s the latest It’s another hotseason day of me feeling like I’m going to drown in the hum-nothing that is the Worselands No sound for miles except flickering stream screen static and the low rumble of Papa’s chug-chug churning the dirt patchwork All morning I’ve been working on the ham because that’s what restoration experts do maintain our collections This ham now joins ranks with a rotary dial telephone complete with cord an old typewriter and a printing press Yes each and every one actually works Hear that Mama You’re not the only one making a difference in the world Come home and I’ll show you my Museum of Fond Memories You won’t be sorry I promise 7
Promise Over and out I say and click off the ham It’d be so much more satisfying if someone actually answered But for now all I can do is keep hoping and tinkering And then at the noon ticktock strike when Papa promised he would come in from the fields but of course he doesn’t because nothing matters more than pro ducing a l ucrative crop of looganuts I hear a bzz-squeal-thump And it isn’t the old cockadoodle weather vane chasing a blusterblow No The air is completely still Bzzz-squeal-thump-THUMP Not weather Not human Unmistakably robo 8
Robo Robo short for robot Not that robos are all that practical in the middle of a d eathstretch Things have been even worse since the old president died and his we-thought-he’d-be-better but-he’s-not son took over the second President Vex This isn’t the time to think about itchglitchy robos that guzzle m-fuel M-fuel is pretty much nonexistent these days and no way will Papa let me keep a robo anyway But that’s not the point 9
The Point if A robo would make a fine addition to my collection a pièce de résistance Especially it’s an antique model Above all Mama would love it Maybe even more than my newly operational printing press She’d be button-popping impressed Plus it’s something to do other than what I’m supposed to be doing which is sparkshining and stocking the burrow in case the deathstretch reaches the Worselands the way the streamscreen says it will I sure hope the streamscreen is wrong 10
