He sat back stage, looking at it. It looked so human. It looked like him. It was designed too. Except it wouldn’t age like him, it wouldn’t break like him. The perfect replica of him. It was a robot. It was his creation. All of it.
6 minutes to show time. It would go out there and host, smile, laugh and talk. It was controlled by buttons his shoes, but after a stroke took out his fine motor work on the left side of his body it was only controlled by his right foot and a glove on his right hand. His left clutched a walking stick. The robot could perform the creation of himself. The person he wanted in the lime light. This performer who was designed and fed up the attention. He wasn’t his creator and his creator wasn’t him.
Most people didn’t know the difference between him and the machine. Those he surrounded himself with knew how different they were. He wasn’t confident, it was. He wasn’t loud, it was. He wasn’t well loved, it was.
He ran a hand over his face as the time approached closer. He was old, he was tired, but he was still creating.
He’d created his work, he’d created a version of himself. He could keep it alive. It was now immortal. He wasn’t.
He was held under the hand of his god and time. It wasn’t. He envied it and pitied it. It got to live forever be loved and adored more than any real human, but it couldn’t feel love because it wasn’t real. It was an image, a symbol, a mask. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t human. That was it’s curse and blessing.
Standing up on creaking weak joints. Wiggling his toes and fingers it came to life. It turned and looked at him with a big smile. One that reached it’s inhuman eyes. It almost looked real, but it never did to him. It was always designed to be more than a simple human.
He began to shuffle slowly leaving it behind. It followed him taking confident steps. It over took him and taking strides ahead. It was always going to. It could exist longer than him and would.
As the show began, he sat in the audience. Controlling it as it brought smiles to the audience’s lips and milked them for laughs. They only saw it. No body saw him. That’s how it like it. They always see the image of the performer never the real thing.
Morgan 