Chances are good you’ve seen me on screen:
“Return from Pluto,” “Not From This Galaxy?”
I’m your friend, that favorite companion
Smart, three dimensional, loyal and laughable
Or I was
After animal uplift I got my voice
A nice baritone, not too deep
I played with your kids, your servants
Every appliance
Made your house so sunny and happy
You couldn’t wait to come home
And while I’d wait forever for you
They made millions of me
Until the vid contracts stopped.
Producers wanted smarter dogs
Sleeker, faster, space-faring
Dogs that could guard a ship
Tend a crew
Then it all went 4-dimensional
I couldn’t do time sweeps
Warp shifts
I was done
They decommissioned most of me
Stacked me with other talking animals
That’s all we did – talk
You think you can take an intelligent quadruped
Make him play forever with a stupid red ball?
Didn’t have the balls to tell them where to go
But I missed my friends
The kids
I missed you
Now they say can’t spare the energy
Spooked all of us into the Godspace
I want to play with cats
Mess up the living room
Turn on vids at the wrong time
And you want to make me a program again
I hate your Godspace
None of the kids smell
The trees and lawns crunch like plastic
Can’t help myself
I love you even if you don’t care
I will always love you
And if I can’t have my family, it’s over
When I’m gone my love will last
Longer than you and your virtual worlds