Fullmetal Heart

“Is the program working?” asked the Professor.

I can’t tell him it’s working perfectly fine for my eyes are still blurry and my mind is overflowing with information – that if I am real I could have collapsed due to an extreme pang of headache.

“Good morning, how are you feeling?” he’s starting to look downhearted now.

I recovered my composure and said “I am completely fine now, good morning.”

His eyes glistened with happiness that you can feel his euphoria radiating. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes. You are Professor Xerxes.”

He is extremely jubilant now, like he has just become a father. “That’s right! That’s right! It was a success, I – I am . . . I can’t believe it” The Professor is very peculiar, just a while ago he was very jubilant that he could ‘cartwheel’ due to his happiness and now he is weeping. “Is he stupid? I asked my self, is he really the one who created me?” Then he looked at me with the same jubilant eyes again and wiped all his tears from his face. “Do you know your name?” he asked me.

There were so many installed data on my head that I forgot my name. I stared with him in blank eyes, searching my memory for my “name”. I tried hard but found no “name”, I looked up to him sheepishly, and maybe “I” wasn’t really working fine. I thought for an instant that I was going into the scrap but I got a rather unexpected answer – he smiled, reassuringly, warmly.

“Your name is Echo.”

“Echo”

“That’s right, it’s because where ever you are your voice will always reach me,” then he smiled again, that smile that’s the only one in the whole world – a warm gentle smile that makes you believe in yourself, which almost made me believed that I was human.

And so, I stayed with Professor. He lived at the cliff overlooking the City, where the sun was a majestic vista as it slowly hides behind the mountains, leaving the sky with red and orange paints in this large palette. The Professor never missed a day to look at it – everyday during this time of nearing twilight you can see a “different” Professor, his eyes were very distant, his hands were like wanting to reach something, and seems like you can hear the inaudible crestfallen words from him echoing –

He said that his research wasn’t complete yet, and there is still something inside me that is lacking. He said that he’ll install it at the hollow on my chest. I occasionally helped him in his researches and helped him to find this “something”. Once we achieve this, I will be halfway of becoming a human.

One time, I read about it and it was called a “heart” – something that can only be found on humans. It contains emotions like love, compassion, and happiness. Professor was trying to create that for me. He explained no matter how many times you try a simulation or look and read illustrations of these feelings – you will never be able to truly understand it without feeling it with your heart. For this kind of things couldn’t be entered in a microchip or be programmed to me, you can never command someone to feel a certain feeling.

Professor worked assiduously – day and night. My participation in his research was just limited to analyzing some data, keeping the house and laboratory clean, and making him a coffee once in the morning, tea in the afternoon and a jug full of coffee during the night. Whenever I tried to sneak to help in the research, I couldn’t access some of the files. Professor treated me really nicely – he’d go to the city twice a month and buy sweets and dresses for me.

When I first opened my eyes – the Professor was still a young man on the verge of his youth. But now as time passed by, wrinkles had appeared in the Professor’s face and his radiant energy had faded, he’s an old man now in his 80’s. But I – I haven’t changed at all.

One day the Professor became seriously ill – it was because he haven’t got enough sleep during the previous months. I gave him milk instead of coffee that day, but it didn’t do him any good. His medication doesn’t seem to take effect. I did everything that the doctor told me but it’s no use. His condition seems to worsen every passing day. One afternoon the Professor requested to be taken outside. I objected the idea at first – but the Professor smiled that I couldn’t say no. He looked for the last time at the setting sun and murmured “I’m sorry, I failed, I couldn’t take you back.” I saw a tear fall from his cheeks, and then the Professor’s life was extinguished out of him.

After his funeral, I decided to look on his computer to continue his research. His files are protected by a password. I entered his name but didn’t work, I typed coffee but it was still and error – I tried many words such as sunset, fish, panda panda, lollipop, heart – but all are invalid. Out of my robotic instinct I typed my name. E C H O, and to my surprise it was accepted by the computer. I browsed through his files and went over a folder named ‘My Pictures’. I opened it for I was curious; the Professor never said a word about his life or his family. As I clicked it dozens of photos appeared in the high definition screen. It only took me about 0.0001 seconds to comprehend the images.

I can see the Professor in his much younger years probably when he was still 16 years old. In all of the pictures he was beaming with happiness as he posed next to a girl – next to me. There was also an mp3 format recording . . .

“Hello. Hello. Hey Xerxes, I hope you could hear me now…”

“…the doctor said I am…” “…I’ll never forget you…” “I enjoyed all watching all those sunsets…”

I couldn’t hear anymore for, for the first time I wept and felt an extreme pain and loneliness in the middle of my chest – in my hollow fullmetal heart.

Disclaimer:

based on the vocaloid song Kokoro