Variety Pack: Issue VII

59 DIRTIER COMPUTER

by Alex Carrigan I’m placed on top of a marble countertop and appraised by a man with coke-bottle glasses and the imprint of a bite on his lip.

I’m not that special. I’m broke inside.

I’m searched all over for any flaws or bugs hidden deep within my coding and my function, hounded by my creator.

I was kicked out, said I'm too loud.

Kicked out, said I'm too proud.

I’ve been sent to market like a robotic toy pig because I was found to be a bit dysfunctional, something within me threatened them.

Ooh, say your goodbyes (say 'em now).

I was built to serve a function.

I was deigned necessary and useful, another in a long series of models each coded to imitate the previous and passed out like alms at church.

I live my life on a TV screen.

The man with moonlike glasses tells my former keeper that I’m only worth half of what they made me for.

A pig not even worth butchering.

Do anybody got it? Do anybody got it? I say anybody got it?

I’d be more useful as a doorstop or to be buried in a landfill than for what returns I can