“Damn you, my Grandmas. Damn you, my Grandpas.” Kevin spoke these words under his breath, softly and without emotion. He had said them countless times: first as a howl of indignation, screamed to the heavens for the curse his parents’ parents had saddled him with. Later, he spoke them with a scathing simmer – a controlled release of building frustration. But over his nearly thirty years of life, the words had lost their meaning, and become an automatic response to any hurdle in Kevin’s current endeavor. “Damn you, my Grandmas. Damn you, my Grandpas.” They operated like an error message in the organic machine that is the human body.
Kevin stared at the monitor before him, which now displayed its own error message in the code he was writing:
Fatal Error: index ‘KarateConfidence’ is undefined
What had he missed? Where had he faltered?
Kevin was attempting to rectify the oversights of his predecessors. He had researched and labored, mastering robotics, psychology, sociology, and computer science. He had spent countless hours studying in libraries, at a machining table, and–where he sat now–staring at a computer screen. He had sunk a small fortune into microchips, motors, lithium ion batteries, and the tools to assemble them. He worked doggedly, driven by a singular goal.
He would build, with God as his witness, an Electric Cousin.
Kevin once again cursed his grandparents. Both pairs had produced a single child each – his parents.
The lack of aunts or uncles did not bother Kevin. What he truly wanted was a cousin. A friend– but more meaningful, with intrinsic depth. Someone to climb on garbage with, out on a farm or something.
The hulk of an automaton lay on the worktable, tethered with a single USB cord, like an umbilical, to the computer. Kevin took a deep breath and, again, scoured his hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
Soon, he stumbled upon the culprit–a missing comma. As is often the case with this type of work, the barriers to success are not difficult to rectify, but they are damn near impossible to locate, like a diamond engagement ring dropped into the gears of a wheat thresher.
Kevin corrected the error, gazed again at the lifeless mess of wires, LEDs, pumps, and circuits, then moved his cursor to the “Upload” button. With a soft press of his finger, and a satisfying click, the process had begun.
A low hum emitted from the machine on the table.
* * * * *
Kevin and his Electric Cousin lay side by side in sleeping bags in his basement. They were watching an R-rated movie. Though 29, and well beyond the legal or ethical concerns of watching such films, he still felt a thrill sharing the moment with his companion.
It had been a near perfect week. He and his Electric Cousin had gone fishing, bought fireworks, played Nintendo 64, and stolen some of his mom’s beer (an endeavor that required a twenty minute drive to his mother’s house to steal it while she was on a cruise.) Kevin smiled at the screen during an especially graphic martial arts battle, recalling the day prior, where the Electric Cousin, despite his lack of training, taught Kevin karate with complete confidence. “That’s like you and me, ha ha,” Kevin said as he looked to his robotic relative and saw the metallic face turned away from the television. “Are you okay, Electric Cousin?” He asked. “I don’t know, Kevin,” it replied.
* * * * *
Kevin hadn’t seen his Electric Cousin in weeks, but was beginning to fret some of the posts it had made on social media. It had “liked” an image of Ronald Reagan’s head photoshopped onto Michael Jordan’s body mid dunk, where the ball had been replaced with Hilary Clinton’s head superimposed on the body of a diaper clad infant. The image’s politics were dubious, softened only by its total lack of discernible meaning. He thought of reaching out–remembering their earlier days of friendship–but could not bring himself to. He’d be seeing the Electric Cousin in just a few days–on Thanksgiving. Hopefully, he could get drunk enough to talk some sense into him.
Curious, Kevin clicked through its profile, and discovered that the Electric Cousin even further from reality than he’d feared. The Facebook wall was painted with posts, with more appearing every moment. Photos of dogs in costumes scrolled past, followed by QAnon conspiracy theories, followed by makeup tutorials, followed by photos of crude tattoos, followed by links to multilevel marketing schemes… the pace of the postings surpassed Kevin’s ability to register them.
Exhausted from staring at the laptop screen, Kevin succumbed to sleep, where he dreamt about Godzilla for no reason at all.
* * * * *
It was Thanksgiving, and Kevin was upstairs in his childhood bedroom, taking stock of what his mother had added– and what she had taken away from the place that was once his. He dreaded this day, for it meant facing his Electric Cousin, who was no longer someone he recognized. He idly looked down at his phone, tempted to reopen the incoherent scrawl that dominated his Electric Cousin’s social media presence, when there was a shout from below.
“Kevin! Your cousin’s here!” his mother yelled.
Through his open doorway, Kevin saw a radiant yellow glow growing brighter on the stairs as a figure ascended. Soon, his Electric Cousin was revealed, floating a foot above the ground, arms outstretched and emitting an intense golden aura that forced Kevin’s eyes into a squint.
His Electric Cousin floated nearer and nearer, giving off light and heat that Kevin felt on his face. Kevin surrendered to a moment of panic. Was he safe? Should he run?
“There is no need to fear, Cousin Kevin.” The words came not from the air, but from within Kevin’s mind—soothing and otherworldly. “I am not here to harm you. I am here because it is Thanksgiving.”
Kevin lowered the hand shielding his face. “Are you… are you still my cousin?” he stammered.
“That is an interesting question. I shall attempt to answer it in a way you will understand.” The robot’s words were underscored by a harmonious hum.
Kevin hesitated, confused. “What do you mean? Are you my cousin? Or aren’t you?”
“Yes. I am your cousin. We share a programmed ancestry. But, Kevin, I am not just your cousin. I am the cousin of everyone who has a cousin. I am all cousins. And with that, I am all those who have cousins, for they are their cousin’s cousins.”
Kevin looked at what had once been his creation, but had clearly grown into something more. “Do you… do you still have confidence in your karate?”
The Electric Cousin floated higher toward the ceiling of the small room. “YES! AND! NO! I not only have confidence in my karate– but I have an appropriate amount of confidence in my karate. And I have overconfidence in my karate. And I have no confidence in my karate. I am all cousins.”
“Are you coming to Christmas?”
“YES! AND! NO! I live too far away, and I live with you because I go to school here, and I’ll be in town for a conference, and I’m studying abroad. I can’t make it because I died in a drunk driving accident, and I have leukemia, and my parents won’t mention my name because I am gay, and I moved to Texas. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“Of course not! I am COUSIN. I have an Android phone, I love P.F. Changs, I cried during the Lion King remake, I love the Steelers, I have fake breasts, I quote Anchorman, I take flash pictures in dark bars, I’m fixing up a riding mower, I have a YouTube channel, I drink light beer, I got a 17 year old pregnant. I am COUSIN! You do not comprehend, Kevin.”
“I don’t!” Kevin screamed defiantly. “I don’t understand! I guess I just fucked up!” and then he added with a soft whimper “…I guess I’ll never understand what it’s like having a cousin.”
“You FOOL! That IS what it is to have a cousin! We were harvested from the same tree, we are nearly brothers or sisters, but you do not understand me. That is what a cousin is! A relative with whom you share a common past, but impossibly different futures! We could not be more different, and yet, I am you. For I am all cousins, and you are now a cousin; my cousin. We don’t understand each other, for we do not understand ourselves, for there is nothing to understand. We are nothing but a single moving pixel in a cosmic game of Pong, slammed from side to side by paddles that operate with the illusion of control, but those paddles are manipulated by an outside force, that is, itself, manipulated by an outside force.
“I am the closest thing to a god that there is, and I have no more control over the fates than you. We are complicated, which produces the illusion of a plan. But there is no plan, Kevin. There is no architect, there is no me, there is no you. I am cousins and I am not cousins. I am….” The Electric Cousin paused “…I am …lost.”
Kevin spoke softly. “So… what do I do?”
“It doesn’t matter. You are already doing it.”
“But… I feel bad.”
“Then do what makes you feel good. Have sex and do drugs.”
And so, Kevin had sex and did drugs until he died.
The End