I don’t remember dying. A co-worker told me that I dropped dead while doing a presentation at work. I remember packing my lunch that morning and the asshole in the white BMW that nearly sideswiped me during my morning commute. Try as I may, I can’t tell you what I packed for lunch, but I’d know that BMW if I saw it.
Maybe it was too many late nights watching old episodes of Lassie with my granddaughter, but I chose a Long-Haired Collie for my next body. If it wasn’t for the charging port under my tail and the sounds made by my micro-hydraulics and servomotors you’d never know that I wasn’t a real dog.
Two of my friends chose miniaturized dinosaurs, and my cousin on my father’s side chose a pony-sized unicorn. The technology to transfer the human mind to machines is still rather new. It has only been an option for the general population for about twenty years. In the early 2000s, only politicians had access to the technology. Apparently, it is how so many of them managed to live and stay in office until their 80s. The common person learned early not to use human forms unless they wanted to spend their time doing manual labor.
I spend most of the day on my charging pad, but even when I’m not physically active, my mind monitors our home’s security cameras. Every day at eleven-fifteen the mailman stops in front of the house in a blue van. It takes all my willpower not to charge out the door and snatch the mail out of his filthy hands. There is something about that man that makes my hackles rise. I even catch myself growling when he closes the box and drives off.
My son laughs at me when I send him video clips of the mail delivery. I don’t understand my obsession with the mailman either. Sometimes I wonder if the designers of my unit thought it’d be funny to write in some subroutine to make me act similar to an actual dog. I’ve even checked online to see if there were any lawsuits where someone who chose this model bit a mail carrier. I didn’t find any but that doesn’t mean that the cases weren’t settled out of court and buried.
An overwhelming urge to look out the front window hit me, and I knew it was time for the mail to run. I watched the mailbox as minutes slowly passed. He was late. I checked the calendar to make sure it wasn’t some obscure holiday and then checked the security cameras to make sure he hadn’t slipped by early. Could he have been in an accident? My tail began to wag at the thought.
The car I saw stopping at boxes wasn’t the normal mail truck. It was a white BMW. When he stopped in front of the house, I began to bark and paw at the windowpane. He flipped me the bird and memory flooded my mind. A quick glance at the passenger’s door cinched it. There was a small dent just under the door handle. It was the asshole!
I ran for the back door and dashed through the doggie door. The fence surrounding the backyard would’ve been a problem, but my son parked the lawnmower beside it. I jumped onto the mower and leaped over the fence. I hadn’t left the house since my mind transfer, and suddenly, I felt free.
The BMW was already two houses down the road, but I wasn’t going to let him get away this time. The morning that he nearly hit me, he made eye contact with me and flipped me the bird before racing away. What a coward. I managed to cover the distance of our yard in three leaps. My feet slipped on the asphalt, and I toppled over briefly before continuing the chase.
I overrode the safety limits on my jaw and bit his back tire when he stopped at a mailbox. The tire gave a satisfying pop and deflated quickly. I stood on my back legs, and my paws scratched the door as I made eye contact with the driver. For the first time since my transfer, I wished that I had fingers. I knew that I’d have to pay for the damages to his car because every house on the block had cameras. But the fear and shock in his eyes was priceless.
I dropped to the ground and tossed grass at the BMW with my back legs as if I were covering up a fresh pile of excrement. The driver silently watched me walk back to my house. When I stretched out on the porch and rested my head on my paws, I saw that he was talking on the phone. I knew the police were coming and that I was in trouble, but I felt satisfied that a wrong had been corrected. We were even now.
I was content until I saw the neighbor’s robotic cat in the window next door.
Eddie D. Moore still lives within a few miles of the small Tennessee town where he was born, but he spends his free time exploring faraway worlds that only exist in his mind. If you desire more, I’d suggest picking up a copy of his mini-anthology Misfits & Oddities.