~~…The roads are the dustiest
The winds are the gustiest
The gates are the rustiest
The pies are the crustiest
The songs the lustiest
The friends the trustiest
Way back home (Back home)...~~
He observed the shrub attentively while he gently plucked a few grayed, skewed, and limp branches right off. Grumbling under his nonexistent breath over however clumsy a raider could truly be! Enough to have crashed head-first into the home's front shrubbery while chugging a bottle's worth of rum loudly at midnight. Chuckling and gurgling off notes, singing every other song to the subsided moonlight like a madman. Perhaps they were — The toll of the treacherous landscape leaving its distinctive mark on humanity as it were.
The encounter had been, relatively, odd. Otherwise peaceful given it was a raider. If the worn harness, poorly mismatched textiles, and grotesque weaponry were anything to go by.
The raider had tripped their way through the dark, ignoring all and every protest Codsworth cared to serve at the pitiful creature. He hadn't intended to hurt the man and therefore had left them to it after he'd unloaded every other complaint he could think of, for once, laid onto somewhat receiving ears. Once the man had trudged out of the sanctuary with his heart soar from all the drinking, there hadn't been any more point, and the handy bot had let the man get on their merry way.
Once daybreak had cast rays of flimsy silver over the dilapidated neighborhood, he'd inspected the shrubbery and found it somewhat riveting that he had something different to attend to for a little while.
He kept his attention pinned to the nearly dying plants. Breaking into a hum out loud when the radio inside the house coughed static or the Travis man took terribly too long to fill the silence, usually murmuring over something while his bony fingers queued the next song.
Codsworth emitted a static hum of disappointment whenever his mind wandered enough to accidentally displace a few leaves unnecessarily and shred them to pieces. One would think he'd be a master, given he'd done the task for over 200 years. However, that wasn't the case — not when his mind was unsteady and overwhelmed by his constant internal blubbering over the Misses or the Mister who had been absent for over two centuries.
He wondered what their lives had been like in the vault, would there have been other bots to attend to them? Would they have been well taken care of? Would Shaun's grandchildren emerge one day and kindly accept him back into their lives? Or would they be indifferent? Confused? Unable to understand who he was and what role he'd played in their family so long ago?
So many questions — and not many answers. Even with time, the answers seemed never to rub off, just dig deeper where far more questions sat awaiting to torment his already depressed mind.
He gave the plant an unintentional yank at the thought of rejection, stripping one of the branches clean of leaves. The small delicate paper-like newly grown leaflets floated weightless in the air before collecting in a quiet pile beneath him. Thank goodness the plant did not complain, no means of telling him to bug off or even intentions to do so (had there been a means) but he couldn't help the guilt welling up inside him as the shrub took a pathetic form and slowly began to welt and bend from his forced clipping session.
A few moments later it was reduced to a stump.
He flung the remains aside in anger. So disturbed over his helplessness. Finding his mind muddled and running circles at the extent of damage he'd done to the Mister and Misses front yard!
Collecting the remains of the shrub, he deposited it in a plastic bin he'd found in a tattered closet in the house.
Sighing and finally finding some logic swelling from his hazy mind, he scouted a trash bin — which proved restlessly futile as it was already overwhelmed with a mountain of junk he'd previously found no use for. Which lately was the majority of everything around…
He flung the bin and dead plant into the depths of the river instead with an objecting shout, before limping home and choosing to trim the rest of the shrubs. Ignoring the ominous trunk that stuck out from the burnt and crisp blades of brown grass poking from the cracked ground.
How useless he'd become…
He began clipping again – because it was Thursday. On Thursdays, he trimmed the shrubs…always…
He was already losing his mind as he watched a few dead leaves fall off the branches at the smallest of provocations when his auditory sensors perked and squealed from an almost unfamiliar sound.
It wasn't though.
Perhaps more ancient and nearly forgotten as the etched addresses along the almost dissolved mailboxes he'd never bothered to clean but not entirely forgotten (because he'd staked the Misters and the Misses mailbox right back up after a few furious storms).
— Never entirely forgotten, but hardly intact… — Could he have heard just a fragmented echo of his past life? Before the bombs? Before all the lovely faces he'd come to understand and cherished had been dragged away by the imminent danger that the bombs brought?
The incident with the drunken raider and ruined plant must have wreaked havoc on his internal circuits or he was starved for a real conversation. Was he finally on his last leg?
He turned to face the road for a moment, noting the familiar noise dissolve promptly. Watching the shadows slip over rusted frames and forgotten luggage. The smooth gold rays collecting in puddles of light along the cracked pavement.
As expected, there was no company to be seen — No soul in sight.
He felt bitter turning away from the sun's rays calling from the other side of the neighborhood after a few lingering minutes. Running diagnostics over his many systems in a matter of seconds…
They weren't ever coming back…
Bitterly, he continued his task in lieu of thinking of whom he hopelessly awaited year after year.