Every day, around mid afternoon, a young girl of about eight would wander throughout her neighborhood in an attempt to find a friend. She would knock on doors, trying to make polite conversation that never sparked into something more. She searched playgrounds high and low but to no avail. She was alone.
One day, she happened upon an elderly man. He was different from all the other people she had spoken to. He looked her in the eyes and genuinely understood what she was saying. So she returned to the man day after day. She learned he was an inventor and was about eighty years old. He had no children and had never been married. He had been just as alone as she was.
After visiting each other for almost two months, the old man told her a secret of his.
"I'm dying."
Never having experienced the loss of someone she cared for before, the young girl asked what he meant. He told her that he was leaving this world, little by little. She asked if that meant leaving her as well.
"Even if you cannot see me, I will still be here."
She didn't ask anything else. She finally understood that she was losing the only person who had ever cared. So she grew angry and yelled at the man, cursed him for abandoning her. He took it quietly, and when she had finally finished, he said, "I do not know if you remember me mentioning my profession. I am an inventor and because I do not want you to continue your life alone, I have designed a friend for you."
The girl didn't know how to respond. She desperately wanted another friend but didn't want the old man to leave. Frustrated, she began to cry and the old man held her and tried to comfort her.
"Tomorrow," he said. "I will bring him tomorrow."
Tomorrow came and with it, a young boy of about nine. The girl was skeptical of him, but the old man assured her that he would never leave her as the old man himself would.
"Is he real?"
"As real as you want him to be."
Understanding what the old man wished for her, she took the boy's hand and together they walked.
Over the years, the boy never actually aged physically, but the girl still enjoyed having him around. They learned everything about each other and conversed at the same time every afternoon. Whenever she tried to invite him somewhere else, though, he politely refused or conjured an excuse. When she tried calling, he never answered. He would only see her when they met in the afternoon. One day, she asked him why and he just shrugged and said it wasn't important.
But it was. To her at least. He was supposed to be her friend, just like the old man had promised. He was supposed to care about her and support her, but he never did. The girl finally realized that the boy had never been her friend. Just the old man's creation. She grew angry, worse than she had ever been. So the next day, she quietly waited for the boy, bloodlust in her heart. When he came into view, she pulled out a knife and destroyed him. Wires spilled from his stomach and sparks flew from his eye sockets.
He had been a robot. A fake. And what was worse, the girl realized.
The old man forgot to give him a heart.