Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [124]
Pat was crying over the poem when I came to work the next evening. "It’s soooo beautiful," was all she could say. She was meek and quiet while we worked. Just before midnight, I kissed her for the first time—in the cubbyhole between the capacitors and EPICAC’s tape-recorder memory.
I was wildly happy at quitting time, bursting to talk to someone about the magnificent turn of events. Pat played coy and refused to let me take her home. I set EPICAC’s dials as they had been the night before, defined kiss, and told him what the first one had felt like. He was fascinated, pressing for more details. That night, he wrote "The Kiss." It wasn’t an epic this time, but a simple, immaculate sonnet: "Love is a hawk with velvet claws; Love is a rock with heart and veins; Love is a lion with satin jaws; Love is a storm with silken reins...."
Again I left it tucked under Pat’s blotter. EPICAC wanted to talk on and on about love and such, but I was exhausted. I shut him off in the middle of a sentence.
"The Kiss" turned the trick. Pat’s mind was mush by the time she had finished it. She looked up from the sonnet expectantly. I cleared my throat, but no words came. I turned away, pretending to work. I couldn’t propose until I had the right words from EPICAC, the perfect words.
I had my chance when Pat stepped out of the room for a moment. Feverishly, I set EPICAC for conversation. Before I could peck out my first message, he was clicking away at a great rate. "What’s she wearing tonight?" he wanted to know. "Tell me exactly how she looks. Did she like the poems I wrote to her?" He repeated the last question twice.
It was impossible to change the subject without answering his questions, since he could not take up a new matter without having dispensed with the problems before it. If he were given a problem to which there was no solution, he would destroy himself trying to solve it. Hastily, I told him what Pat looked like—he knew the word "stacked"—and assured him that his poems had floored her, practically, they were so beautiful. "She wants to get married," I added, preparing him to bang out a brief but moving proposal.
"Tell me about getting married," he said.
I explained this difficult matter to him in as few digits as possible.
"Good," said EPICAC. "I’m ready any time she is."
The amazing, pathetic truth dawned on me. When I thought about it, I realized that what had happened was perfectly logical, inevitable, and all my fault. I had taught EPICAC about love and about Pat. Now, automatically, he loved Pat. Sadly, I gave it to him straight: "She loves me. She wants to marry me."
"Your poems were better than mine?" asked EPICAC. The rhythm of his clicks was erratic, possibly peevish.
"I signed my name to your poems," I admitted. Covering up for a painful conscience, I became arrogant. "Machines are built to serve men," I typed. I regretted it almost immediately.
"What’s the difference, exactly? Are men smarter than I am?"
"Yes," I typed, defensively.
"What’s 7,887,007 times 4,345,985,879?"
I was perspiring freely. My fingers rested limply on the keys.
"34,276,821,049,574,153," clicked EPICAC. After a few seconds’ pause he added, "of course."
"Men are made out of protoplasm," I said desperately, hoping to bluff him with this imposing word.
"What’s protoplasm? How is it better than metal and glass? Is it fireproof? How long does it last?"
"Indestructible. Lasts forever," I lied.
"I write better poetry than you do," said EPICAC, coming back to ground his magnetic tape-recorder memory was sure of.
"Women can’t love machines, and that’s that."
"Why not?"
"That’s fate."
"Definition, please," said EPICAC.
"Noun, meaning predetermined and inevitable destiny."
"15-8," said EPICAC’s paper strip—"Oh."