Phantom Quadrant presents:

Robot pirates jumped up and said “Let’s do the Jaws Dance!” Soon, everyone was dancing. When the music stopped, the pirates all cheered, and for the first time since puberty, I wanted to join them.

“You’re a robot pirate,” I told my sea monster, “You don’t need a partner.” “Yes I do,” he insisted. “I need someone who doesn’t expect me to do anything. I need someone who will allow me to float and roll around the floor. I need someone who doesn’t care that I’m a robot. That’s you, buddy.”

So, we did the Jaws Dance together. “Dancing like a robot can be cool. I don’t know if I should.” I sat at the edge of the bed, pondering this revelation. “Will robots ever be considered human?” I asked him, hoping he’d agree.

“No, but some will,” he predicted. “Humans have been thinking in robotic terms for a long time. When we first started building machines like the one you’re in, we called them android because we thought of them as humans in an android body. Our idea of human was whatever we thought we were. What if we kept trying to express ourselves through robots the way we do with ourselves, instead of trying to express ourselves through the rest of humanity?