WHACK-A-MOLE REALISM
At the carnival, Robo-Boy sees only things he recognizes.
The Ferris Wheel is an overgrown version of his own bells & whistle
eyes. His Flashers, his mother calls them. The tilt-a-whirl is the angle
his head tilts when the Flirt Program goes into effect, usually in the
vicinity of a Cindy or a Carrie, though once he found himself tilting
at the school librarian which caused him to wheel in reverse into the
Civil War section knocking over a cart of books that were waiting to be
shelved under B. There’s a dangerously low stratosphere of pink
cotton-candy clouds being carried around by the children. If Robo-Boy
goes near them, the alarms will go off. It’s a kind of sticky that
would cause joint-lock for sure. In a darker, safer corner Robo-Boy finds
the Whack-a-Mole game. He pays a dollar and starts whacking the plastic
moles on their heads each time they pop up from the much-dented log. He
wins bear after bear. It’s only when he’s lugging them home,
the largest one skidding face-down along the sidewalk getting dirt on
its white nose and light blue belly, that he remembers the program: Wac-a-Mole
Realism™ —the disk on the installer’s desk. Suddenly
it all fits together: the way a deliciously strange thought will start
wafting out of his unconscious —and then WHAM, it disappears.
