Artificial Emotions: Part 1

"Artificial Emotions: Part 1" By: Erickson

        A man sweats in a warehouse. His forehead is flooded, and his hands refuse to stop moving. The scent of thick oil balloons into every nostril, the machines crank and squeal and hiss. This man exists in a state of perpetual motion, next to a robotic claw that spins towards a new and chiseled metallic face. Both beings work in slanted skin and hold the same flat-roadkill lips.

        He has only recently found out about the massive protests, and each day his heart sinks lower into his stomach. It is 2075, in a bustling metropolitan America. The shouting and destruction inch closer towards the man in the warehouse. 

        “What about the next generation? The children?”

        His words creep from under his breath, brushing into the flow of bustling cardboard. The man flips a brown sheet, folds, flips, reverses, closes, and throws a brand-new box to a squeaky black conveyor belt. Again. Sweat drips, and black dots splat on boxes, as they rotate and twist into their new homes.

        A robot dashes the birth of another box within metallic clickers. It drops the product onto a set of silver rollers. Each box finishes at the same angle and at a calculated orientation. They finish with perfect corners and smooth brown faces all around.

        The man notices the symmetry produced by the machine.

        “We’ll be more disconnected than…this?”

        His hands spin from task to task. Then his head tilts, and the shine from the robot blinds him. Beaming warehouse lights kept bloodshot eyes awake, alert, living. They were lights that left no shadows. The man sighed.   

        Mind numbing work always broke Steven. But it seemed the world wanted to race the man, yes. It wanted to race the Steven Williams to see who would break harder. Yes, because the world often inflicts the same fury on both father and son. 

        One month ago, Steven sat in a fluffed throne, black mesh with gray rivets floated him above his seat. Lumbar support, so soft yet firm, fixed any man’s posture who sat in his chair. A nameplate shined, engraved into the desk yet bolstered out, demanding respect with its silver and gold lettering. Carefully etched letters, completed by another human centered business in the skyscraper across the street.  

        Steven made six figures every year, and that was without the bonuses that would 5x, or 8x his salary easily. Sure, he had to fight for his piece of pie, but every worker had a slight side eye when laughing at his jokes. There were mumbles and burbles on the other sides of drinking fountains. They would not be fooled, they all knew who his father was.

        His father? A man of tradition, a man of value. The types that don’t grow on trees. A man that delays himself, of himself, limiting only righteousness to exhale from his breath. When his business entered the billions, people really started talking. But the man didn’t stop there. What he did next would make a complete economic shift, that would better generations to come. He paid his employees fair wages multiplied by ten, he fought for worker rights (in legal documents and on the field), and he lowered the prices of Thinking Thought's products (everything from technology to healthcare), so that every consumer could afford life changing treatment, and goods. 
        He was a modern-day Henry Ford who altered how companies treated their employees. This was a new age, and Steven Williams Sr. projected the future even farther, as a great man is one who is ahead of his time. Williams even outlawed robotics within the core of his own company, something he boasted about, despite a specific interview that left him a sweaty, and incoherent mess. Businesses had replaced 95% of all workers with machines to stay in business, and Steven Williams Sr. put all that economic strain, it seemed, upon his own chest.  

        Then, William Sr. had passed. And like any great man, his essence lasted for long after. The company was so engrained in his richness, and his values. The weeks stretched after his death and each worker’s pay was bumped higher. Strange faces met each other in hallways, the hallways of the many skyscrapers that were owned by Thinking Thoughts Incorporated.

        “How was business still profitable?” People asked.

        “How did the world still turn without one of the most treasured men of our time?”

        The questions were grim and demanding of religion and faith. However, the company surged in profits, even meeting an all-time high, and rained beauty upon their shareholders. William Jr.’s pay was raised just like the rest of the workers. Jr. took it as a sign to do even more for his community. The father’s energy, a great man’s energy, was like sunlight.

        Sunlight has painted men coming out of caves since the beginning of time, and continues to paint us, even as we cave ourselves over with screens and micro processing chips.

~To Be Continued

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