The ROAD-E

They walked on, the boy and his father. Into and out of the capricious mists, past the houses stripped of their wood and wiring. The silhouettes of abandoned gas stations, skeletal like gallows.

–Papa?–

–What is it.–

–Where are we going?–

–Before, it was a landfill. You know what a landfill is?–

–Like a dump.–

–Yes, like a dump.–

–Will there be food there?–

–Perhaps. So we must be especially careful.–

The man gripped his revolver, which contained two bullets. It had saved their lives, this revolver, by being both threatening and mediocre. The perfect balance that made the two of them appear not worth it. They walked down the long highway. The man was unsure how he would react should a pack of people appear. A pack meant death. But packs were more and more rare these days. There was no food to sustain them.

Soon they saw the cubes of trash, arranged nearly against the side of the road. The man has not seen such precision in a long time. Like cans in the old supermarkets they are, not picked over or ransacked. There might be rats here, or perhaps an ever better dinner. The man leaned over and lifted the cube. It had been tightly compacted, and anything within crushed.

–What is it, papa?–

–Trash.–

Trash now the world was, but even the trash was disappearing, being unmade by the collapse of civilization and idly the man thought of a snake devouring its tail and wondered when it would stop. If the cold coming would stop at the north or follow them south, erasing the wreckage from the ruined canvas, one inch at a time.

–Papa, I hear something.–

Whispering now, the man. –You remember what I told you about this gun?–

–Don't let them take you alive.–

–Atta boy. But we don't have to worry about that. And why not?–

–We're the good guys. We carry the fire.–

–That's right. You wait right here. I'll see what the noise is. It might be our dinner.–

The man scrambles over the mountain of garbage and follows the soft whirring. He is jumpy and when he sees a little figure in the shadow of an old tractor, the man nearly unloads one of the precious bullets then and there. But the small silhouettes stops him. Too small for a human, thank god. A dog then. A dog could feed them for a week. No, he saw the movement of hands. Could he eat something with hands, he wondered.

Then the figure rolled into the light, and the man's hopes died. It was metal.

–WWWWWAAAAALLLL-E?– said the robot.

The man shook his head. Just a mindless automaton, heedless of the carnage that the earth had seen. He thought of his wife and envied the metal creature for its ignorance.

–Papa?–

–I told you not to follow me.–

–I hear a voice. Hey, it's a robot!–

–He's just a moving trash compactor. He's been making those cubes we saw.–

–He likes you. He's holding out his hand.–

–He doesn't like anything. He's just metal.–

–Come on, take his hand.–

The man sighed. It warmed and broke his heart, his son's refusal to grow hardened. If he could feel for this appliance, surely he would be broken by the horrors ahead. But the son's empathy was contagious. He put his dirty hand in the robot's.

–Ow, he's pulling me.–

–He wants to show you something!–

–He's taking the wrong way. We need to go south.–

–Please, papa. We should trust him.–

–We need food.–

Truthfully, though he could have easily pulled away from the robot's grip, it felt a huge relief to be pulled in a direction, to relinquish control. And he wondered if was betraying his son by listening to him, if he was using love and hope as an excuse for a double suicide. Through the landfill the three went, for minutes and then hours. Finally, just when the man was starting to feel dizzy, he heard the roar.

–A fire?–

The robot shook his head, his binocular eyes waggling up and down. He tugged again, with greater urgency. Not knowing exactly why, the man began to run, with his son and the robot following behind. They ran and ran until they came across the sight that the man had not let himself dream of: an enormous spaceship, with the letters BNL on the side, and a line of people filing inside.

–What is that, papa?–

–Escape, son. We're leaving this planet. We're leaving this whole planet.–

The man started to walk toward the rocket but the boy stayed and gave the robot's hand a final squeeze. Then he followed his father, leaving the droid to return his task of creating parcels of order in a dying world.