![]() From the open door of her room came a blast of love-sick rock music. Music Girl tried to help her brother the only way she knew how. Ever since the alien had taken Bethany away, he spent hours analyzing satellite data and scanning the night sky, searching for some sign of her. He did his schoolwork mechanically-that had never taken any effort from him-and spent all his time watching his computer screen. The whole bottom floor of the house, converted into a workshop to support his genius, sat quiet and dust covered. Henry walked past the robot every day without looking at it. So the robot sat out on the porch for weeks, until finally Henry’s sister, Music Girl, dragged it inside and lay it against the side of the stairs. He was too broken up over losing her to take care of the things he should. He’d watched her pulled up into a sphere of heat and light in the sky, throwing her arms wide to meet it, and then vanish into the stars. But the girl Henry loved had been abducted by aliens. The robot had been built by their son, Henry Wang. The neighbors called and left messages on the Wang family’s answering machine, asking them to take the robot inside. They thought of how their medication was getting more expensive, and how summer was starting and there were no holidays to look forward to for a long time, not good ones at least. When the neighbors looked out their windows and saw the robot, it reminded them that the meat-packing plant in town was cutting jobs for the first time in its history. How would they find jobs in this economy, or afford the increasing cost of college tuition, or purchase a home with any confidence? Just one look at its dented metal skull made them tear up with worry for their two children. Wang had to step over it every morning when they went to work. ![]() It lay across the front steps of the Wang family’s house, bucket-shaped head tilted to the side, three arms and three legs sprawled in every direction. Everyone agreed, the dead robot was making them sad.
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