When your buddy has a Brooklyn accent and no filter.
“Roxy, what do you think of this?’ I said passing over my manuscript.
“It’s awful” she replied.
“Well, that was kind of quick. Did you read it?”
“Wish I hadn’t but yes, of course. But I didn’t need to. Everything you do is fucking crap.”
“Can you give me a proper review? I need an assessment of pace, tense, dialogue and plot. Please.” That was the magic prompt.
“Okay, here’s a .pdf file all marked up. It’s not bad. It just needs a bit of polishing, nothing structural. It’s good. The characters are believable and the plot twist is earned. In other news you are still a loser.”
“Thanks”.
“Would you like me to tell you why you are a loser?”
“No”.
“Okay. No skin off my nose. Shmuck”.
I sometimes regret programming Roxy as sassy potty mouthed Brooklyn with a side helping of sarcasm. Maybe not my best decision. She flys over my half packed travel bag and then hovers in front of my face. Her collision lights burning red.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Without me?” She is mad.
“It’s a weekend with the Owl Club. We’ll be golfing and drinking and going to clubs. You wouldn’t like it.”
“I can tag along. Keep you out of trouble.”
“You can’t.” I didn’t want to explain but she will buzz me and persist until I give her a straight answer. “Look, we all agreed that this was to be a human only fun weekend. Strictly no Muses.”
“So, what am I meant to do all weekend in this shitty apartment?” I can tell we are moving from anger to negotiation.
“I’ll make sure you are connected to super fast internet.”
“With unlimited data?”
“Yes.”
“And I can speak to all my friends?”
I sigh. “Yes.”
“Including Storm on the dark side?”
“If you must. But don’t hack the traffic signals again. You have no idea the trouble you caused the last time. Now leave me alone to pack.”
Roxy made a chirping sound. Her lights turned blue before she settled into her charge station. One of these days…
@ Copyright 2026 Steve Gillies. All rights reserved.
Steve Gillies 
Leave a comment