Fake tears, Hollow stares
Isabel Haro
"The law determines that the human guilty of homicide will be sentenced to life imprisonment, with no exceptions. Do you plead guilty of the crime? ". The judge declared firmly. The young man felt as drops of sweat ran down his back. His hands trembling and his eyes empty, he approached the microphone and said in a muffled and disinterested voice. "Yes." The judge nodded. "Mr. Travis Cornejo is guilty of the murder of the android R-30. Do you have anything to say before you are sentenced? "
Mr. Cornejo cleared his throat, ran his sweaty hand through his hair, fixed his velvet suit and spoke, once again with boredom and watching a horizon lost among the jurors. "A robot has no soul. Inside it there are only wires and clockwork. Yes, I admit that I was the one who fired a bullet through his metal body. But killing someone is stealing their life. R-30 was not born, then it couldn't have died. How could I have killed something that was never alive? "
The crowd fell silent. The humans on the right side of the courtroom lowered their eyes to their shoes and some robots on the left let false tears escape their glass eyes.
Eighteen hours later the jury returned with a sealed envelope. This time it was the judge who was staring into a void. "The law determines that the human guilty of homicide will be sentenced to life imprisonment." Time stopped in a moment of uncertainty in which humans and robots, as brothers, questioned their existence. "Mr. Travis Cornejo is acquitted by the jury."
The body of R-30 was melted in an inferno inside the robot factory. Travis washed his hands and went his way.
Mr. Cornejo cleared his throat, ran his sweaty hand through his hair, fixed his velvet suit and spoke, once again with boredom and watching a horizon lost among the jurors. "A robot has no soul. Inside it there are only wires and clockwork. Yes, I admit that I was the one who fired a bullet through his metal body. But killing someone is stealing their life. R-30 was not born, then it couldn't have died. How could I have killed something that was never alive? "
The crowd fell silent. The humans on the right side of the courtroom lowered their eyes to their shoes and some robots on the left let false tears escape their glass eyes.
Eighteen hours later the jury returned with a sealed envelope. This time it was the judge who was staring into a void. "The law determines that the human guilty of homicide will be sentenced to life imprisonment." Time stopped in a moment of uncertainty in which humans and robots, as brothers, questioned their existence. "Mr. Travis Cornejo is acquitted by the jury."
The body of R-30 was melted in an inferno inside the robot factory. Travis washed his hands and went his way.