Size / / /

"'And that is all,' said Dr. [Susan] Calvin, rising. 'I saw it from the beginning, when the poor robots couldn't speak, to the end, when they stand between mankind and destruction. I will see no more. My life is over.'"

—"The Evitable Conflict," from I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

Isaac invented you in isolation:

no mother and no sisters, no girlfriends,

more symbol than personality. Everything was alien.

Robots were what went right,

followed the rules. Those that lied,

that hid, that reached inside your brain—

you squashed, unsparked, shut off.

What violence from loneliness.

And Isaac gave you center stage.

Did you represent the women of his future?

Your devotion to mathematics and the three laws

of robotics prohibit romance and biology.

Where did he see the horde born from

who spanned his galaxy? Written out

of the story, what women would agree

to bear the margin's tedium from now

until machines might save us all?

Narrator, protagonist, soliloquizing

your brilliance to the audience,

your actions had the option to speak

what dialogue could never leave your mouth.

You trusted the unknown, the Other,

you laid down calmly on the tracks

and called out, singing, to the train.

Don't save me. Let the wild metal men

kidnap me, blow up my trappings of humanity.

Why would they take you in?

Like any other ape, you couldn't meet

the membership requirements.

Don't injure other people. Pay attention

to the words of those wiser than yourself.

Be true. Woman in a man's world

just like you, yet I refuse to choose destruction

of my own deep unknown, the human mystery.

I can hear the whistle blowing. Stand up.

Or I will pull you out with my own warm hand.




Mary Alexandra Agner writes of dead women, telescopes, and secrets. Her poetry, stories, and nonfiction have appeared in The Cascadia Subduction ZoneShenandoah, and Sky & Telescope, respectively. She can be found online at http://www.pantoum.org.
Current Issue
31 Dec 2024

Of Water, Always Seeking 
remember, you are not alone, / and you have fury / as well as faith
The Egg 
By: River
faded computations / erased by the light of blood moons and / chalk
In the Zoo 
crocodile, crocodile, may we cross your river?
The Quantum and Temporal Properties of Unresolved Love 
Strange Horizons
Dante Amoretti, PhD, PE, Fellow, IEEE, Fellow, IET, IEEE-HKN   Abstract—This study explores the temporal and quantum properties of Unresolved Love (UL), drawing parallels with the resublimated thiotimoline discovered by Asimov in 1948. Much like thiotimoline, UL exhibits temporally irregular behavior, decaying not only in the present but also extending into both the past and future. This paper utilizes the concept of affectrons (i.e., love quantum particles emitted by the cardiac muscle), which directly influence the Cardial Love Density (CLD), the measurable amount of love per unit of volume within the heart. By tracking the concentration of affectrons over time,
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