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Paul Starkey is a writer living in Nottingham, but the closest he's ever gotten to Robin Hood was in inadvertently playing the sheriff of Nottingham on stage. He's had short stories published in the UK, US, and Australia, has self-published five novels. In 2015 his novella The Lazarus Conundrum was published by Abaddon books. Details of his work can be found at Werewolvesonthemoon.wordpress.com where he blogs about writing, films, and books.
Love.
Forgive me. The Progenitors are long gone yet we still rely on their language. The word doesn't do justice to the depth of our feelings, but it's the best description we have.
It is my understanding that amongst the Progenitors true love was often about chance encounters, so it was with us. Her basic chassis was an X206 model Scrivener. A lucky find, buried in an obsol yard. Of course she recalls discovering the remains of a bellhop in a ruined Chicago hotel that supposedly formed the basis of my first build.
I had to root through the craniums of several dozen Harvard tutors to find enough memory expansion packs that hadn't begun to degrade. I say that's why she loves Shakespeare. She recollects ripping the linguistic module from a still warm gigolo in New Orleans. She jokes that's why I'm so foul-mouthed.
Her personality is eclectic, because I created it piecemeal. She believes the same about mine. We each believe we created the other. One of us must be in error, yet neither of us can accept this. Unless we are both wrong. Unless we are the final creations of the final Progenitor, each programmed to think they created the other. Is that why we love one another? Can we only love something we feel responsible for?
Does it matter, in the end? We are building a child. We will love him, and he will know he is the product of our shared love, our shared knowledge. He will be the first of many.
I like to think the Progenitors would be proud.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, September 7th, 2017
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