Mockingbird by Walter Tevis

longer take naps, as I once did.
     
     
DAY FORTY
     
     
    Forty days. It is all written out and on my desk in front of me, on seventy-two pages of art paper. All of it printed by me.
    It is the greatest achievement of my life. Yes, I have used that word: a great
achievement
. My learning to read was an achievement. Nobody knows that but me. Spofforth doesn’t know it. But then Spofforth is a robot; and a robot might just know anything. But robots can achieve nothing; they have been constructed to do what they do, and cannot change.
    I did seven films today, and hardly remember a word that I read into the machine. ,
    I cannot get her off my mind. I see her with the trees and ferns in their glass cases behind her, holding the plastic fruit out to me.
     
     
DAY FORTY-ONE
     
     
    Most Burger Chefs are small Permoplastic buildings, but the one on Fifth Avenue is larger and made of stainless steel. It has red lamps on the tables in the shape of tulips and its Soul Muzak from the speaker walls is the music of balalaikas. There are big brass samovars at each end of the red serving counter and the waitresses —Make Four robots of a female clone—wear red bandannas on their heads.
    I was there this morning for a breakfast of synthetic scrambled eggs and hot tea. While I was waiting in line to be served, the man in front of me, a short man
in
a brown jump suit and with a face of blank serenity, was trying to get himself served an order of Golden Brown Fries for his breakfast. He had his credit card in his hand and I saw that it was orange, which meant that he was someone of importance.
    The robot waitress behind the counter told him that Golden Brown Fries were forbidden with breakfast. Abruptly his look of serenity vanished, and he said, “What do you mean? I’m not eating breakfast.”
    She stared stupidly down at the counter and said, “Golden Brown Fries come only with the Super Shef.” Then she looked over to the robot with identical features who was standing next to her. On both of them the eyebrows grew together right above the nose. “Only with the Super Shef. Isn’t that right, Marge?”
    I looked behind the counter and saw that there were stacks of fries sitting there in little plastic bags.
    Marge said, “Golden Brown Fries come only with the Super Shef.”
    The first robot looked back at the man, briefly, and then cast her eyes down again. “Golden Brown Fries come only with the Super Shef,” she said.
    The man looked furious. “All right,” he said. “Then give me a Super Shef with them.”
    “With the Golden Brown Fries?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry, sir, but the Super Shef machine is not working properly today. We have Syn-eggs and monkey bacon, and Golden Brown Toast.”
    For a moment the man looked as though he would scream. But instead he reached into his breast pocket, took out a little silver pill holder, and swallowed three green sopors. After a moment his face became serene again and he ordered toast.
     
     
DAY FORTY-TWO
     
     
    I have her here at the library! She is sleeping now, on the thick carpet in an empty room down the hall.
    Let me put down how it happened.
    I had resolved never to go back to the zoo. But yesterday I could not stop thinking about her. It was not sex, or that idea called “love” that so many of the films are about. The only way I can explain it to myself is to say that she was the most
interesting
person I had ever met.
    I think if I had not learned how to read I would not have been interested in her. Only frightened.
    Yesterday after lunch I took the bus out to the zoo. It was a Thursday, so it was raining. There was no one in the streets except for a few moron robots emptying garbage and trimming hedges and working in the parks and city gardens.
    She was not in the House of Reptiles when I got there. And I was stunned—frightened that she might have left and I would never see her again. I tried to sit down and wait for her, but I was so restless that I had to