All Washed Up

The curb of Wall Street has held the bottoms of many men: some who have risen above the tide and some who have drowned. Today of all days, the curb– and specifically the small street cleaning robot who permanently occupies the curb– witnessed one of these men. At first, the bits of his egg sandwich just fell onto his tie. As he spoke louder into his phone the chunks flew further onto the pavement, where the gutterbot(™) courteously swept the crumbs into his basket for appropriate disposal into a garbage receptacle at the end of the day. The man’s conversation seemed proud and rich in emotion. as more exaltation came, the gutterbot swept up his crumbs without spite.

Mist became rain yet the man stayed perched and completely involved in his phone call. Pride quickly became what gutterbot recognized as shock, then denial (this was obvious by the repetitive and choppy ‘no no no no’ and pacing) then anger. the man threw his sandwich on the floor. Gutterbot collected it for appropriate disposal into a garbage receptacle.

Was there a larger, more sophisticated gutterbot who would sweep up the garbage receptacles? A gutterbot with a flashy LED display on his front to aid in identification while he attended gutterbot parties and mingled with other bots? A gutterbot with a social life like that would also need unique hobbies or pastimes to differentiate it beyond his unique LED name. What else would a gutterbot do in between collecting garbage receptacles?

Eventually the gutterbot was also sweeping up the sandwich container, then the man’s smashed cellphone, then his papers, and finally his briefcase. The man made a noise the gutterbot couldn’t recognize. The man, on all fours, pounded his chest, screaming into the sky. the rain, now heavier than gutterbot ever remembered it raining before, pooled around the man. Eventually, the entire street began to fill with rainwater. The man still screaming until the rainwater was so deep it began to rush into his mouth. He tried to paddle his way to the top of the water with no avail. His expression became muted. The tension in his fists released. The man no longer made noise of any sort. The gutterbot rotated the drain plug 90 degrees counter clockwise. The street swiftly drained of rainwater and the man laid motionless on the curb.. The gutterbot swept up the debris. A chime came from the digital subway clock and the gutterbot emptied the contents of his container. What if the other gutterbots knew how to dance?