In a post-apocalyptic self-induced hypno-trance, I careen like a chipped eight-ball down the boulevard of broken dreams, vision scattered and diffuse, like a rainbow shot through the eyes of a giant fly.  My stiff metallic garments fairly ring, and the banshee howl of unseen turbines twists obscenely around in my electroplated brain-case. 

I am only one of thousands crashing about in the cement skeletons that were once a real city, but now house only the damaged goods of a dying civilization, crumbling remnants of love, hate, lust, and greed.  I would stop, but I cannot, magnetic push and pull keeps me in perpetual motion; I am a kinetic juggernaut, but, I, too, am dying, no longer able to withstand the whirwinds of radioctive dust storms, no longer able to block out the light that pierces my armor, no longer able to. . .no longer able. . .no longer. . .no. . .no. . .no. . .

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 . . .The two boys were in no hurry, now, they were blocks away from the school, and the fat old truant officer, Huffenpuff, wasn’t going to look past his box of donuts to find the two.  Joey, the bigger of the kids, fished a crumpled pack of Marlboros from his jeans pockets, smokes that he had filched from his old man’s greasy coveralls while the old fart was passed out drunk in front of a Yankees game on the old black-and-white television in the garage

Joey and Stu lit up and inhaled, and then both fought to keep the acrid smoke in without gagging.  Joey was the first to cough, and then the two escapees pitched a fit of hawking and spewage, eyes watering, throats burning, breath rasping, faces green.  When they finally recovered enough to speak, Stu grinned, weakly, and hoarsely whispered, “Smooth stuff, eh Joey?”  Joey nodded, and mumbled something that might have been agreement, and that’s when they saw it. . .

. . .”It looks like some kind of robot toy”, Joey said, and Stu said, “Yeah, but it’s weird; it looks like some kind of beat-up Terminator businessman or something.  Look at that metal trench coat he’s wearing.  And, what is that little blinking light on his head?  Who left that thing here?”

The boys were puzzled; the robot thingy was spinning around in a pot-hole when they found it, but it sounded like Joey’s dad’s shaver when it was running out of batteries. There wasn’t anybody else around; nobody came down here; it was just a bunch of crumbling warehouses.

When the red light stopped blinking, the boys lost interest in the toy, and Joey chucked it at a rare, unbroken warehouse window, and pumped his fist when they heard the satisfying crack of glass.

“Oh, well”, said Stu, “It looks like another civilization bites the dust.  Hey, lets go over to Tony’s.  We can watch him make sausage.” 

And the boys slowly continued on their way.