Excerpts from
Machines Don’t Sense Skin
By Dennis Jürgensen
Johnny is
convinced that he is a machine with a special task to perform. Friends try to set him up with the beautiful
Diana Limann.But Johnny is not
programmed for love, and when Diana Limann comes between him and the task,
logically enough there is only one solution: she has to be eliminated…
Johnny
grabbed the white plastic bottle with the green letters with speed stripes on:
ENGINE OIL – lubricate well for top performance!
He unscrewed the top, put the spout to his mouth and let the thick brown-black
fluid flow freely.He took three large
swigs, burped with enjoyment and screwed the top back on. Then he continued his work on the computer.
He had written 28.5 lines when the eardrum in his super-sensitive ear
registered the chime of the doorbell downstairs. Mrs. Uno walked over the parquet floor in her white summer
shoes.He knew it was the white ones,
because they made a different sound from the brown ones. She opened the front door.br>
Although Johnny was sitting on the first floor with the door closed, he could
hear the conversation clearly.Just for
safety’s sake he stored it in his extensive memory. You never knew.Everything
had been so strange recently.People
were beginning to ask strange questions. About feelings.About love. And sex.
“Hi, Mrs. Uno!”
“Is Johnny in?”
“Yes, he’s up in his room.He alsways
does that now. I’ve told him he
should go out in this lovely weather and enjoy his holidays, but he insists
on writing in that crazy book. I really
don’t know what’s up with him!”
“Perhaps I can give him something else to think
about,” Renny Quist suggests confidently.
“You’re welcome to try, but I wouldn’t get your hopes
up, if I were you. He’s unbelievably
odd at the moment.”
“The gang’s off to the beach,” Renny Quist explained and stepped in wearing his
trainers. Johnny could hear that there
was a hole in the sole of one of them. And
the laces had come undone. There was a
pleasant clicking sound on the parquet floor, like a milk tooth in a basin.
“A walk on the beach is exactly what he needs.
If you’ve just seen how pale he is, Renny. And there are lots of you… Hello, Jack!”
“Hi, Mrs. Uno!” a boy called out from the garden gate.
“Hello, girls!”
Several
clear voices said “Hi” back.
Johnny continued working at the keyboard of the computer completely unmoved as
footsteps sounded up the stairs. A
shoulder caught a picture on the way up.
Mrs. Uno knocked at the door.
“Johnny! You’ve got visitors!”
He didn’t
answer. Concentrated on his writing.
“Johnny!”
His fingers
hung impatiently over the keyboard.
“Go in!”
Mrs. Uno opened the door. Johnny
continued writing.
“Well, the expression is Come in, Johnny!
Why do you speak in such a strange way? Renny’s here.”
Johnny came away from the keyboard and swung round on his chair.
The neural network under his frontal lobe
registered 68.389 sensations, but he was content to concentrate on the most
immediate.
Translated by
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