More Advances In Robotics

"So where you taking me?" Ponsemby asked.

"We're going to the City, Ponsemby, as I promised," said Roab, rearing the motorboat to the side of the harbor. (((lack of better word for landing of small vessels, maybe a quay?)))

They got up and started walking down the planks. "Are we there yet?" asked Ponsemby.

"Why don't you write a letter to Kirsten Dunst, asking if she may let go of your Romanian street urchin, that you may then both coalesce and spurt your juices upon the universe?" The street had become dark, and Roab checked his watch.

This was getting really boring. Fucking boat and planks. "Notice how everybody around us is closing down earlier?" Ponsemby remarked.

Okay, thought Roab as they went down past 11th and 3rd. "Yeah, I have, matter of fact," said Roab. "They're all closing their businesses up a little earlier these days. There's an economic depression. People are fucking compensating."

"No," said Ponsemby, grinning, "that's not really it." Suddenly, a homeless man curled from an unseen corner, unto their wake. In the murky shadows of this curled apparition's unfurling browned sheets evolved a deceased hand. Diseased hand. This very hand now begged for money, and grabbed Roab's, which was nearest.

"It's my Romanian girlfriend," laughed Ponsemby hysterically, as Roab struggled, pulled into the corner of the concrete underside by the hungry beast. "Sometimes she's a real monster. A devil in the dream!"

"Kill it!" yelled Roab.

"I sent her flowers, you know?" said Ponsemby, raising his eyebrows. "All the way to fucking Romania!"

Roab was wrestling with the homeless man in the shadow of the overpass. There were no real elements but the overwhelming sheets of the imaciated, these deceased hands that liked to tickle so. "Ponsemby," Roab would gulp, from time to time, as he rose from that twisting sea of dirt and dust, "save me!"

"One time I even bought her probably the most spectacular box of chocolates," mumbled Ponsemby sinking into a past time, as Roab struggled over there. "Admittedly, it was kind of corporate. But it was the only nice thing I could find to send to Ro-"

"I'm drowning," yelped Roab, and then Ponsemby gently fished him out.

"Drowning, were you?" he smiled.

"Fuck you man, I was in there, and the gha --" and the poor beggar started crawling over too, trying to be part of the ... group. Ponsemby gave that beggar a quarter from generosity, and the two were able to pass on, by themselves, while the creature went off to hide it. They walked for for hours, away from the place and towards the City.

"Shit, I never knew you could be so kind," said Roab, finally, unable to hold it. "Shit, it was like, you had some massive revelation, in the middle there, somewhere! Thanks for saving me, man."

"You don't know anything about me," said Ponsemby, rolling the quarter down his back pocket and urging Roab forward.