The Robot Translator (Flash Fiction Part 12)

Image by kiquebg from Pixaba

This is the 12th part of the story. The previous 11 parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

The annual office dinner is usually held at a mid-town restaurant with white table cloths, liquor license, and spotless counters, which is very different from its counterparts in the immigrant quarter in Lower Manhattan. Ku would dress in his best suit. He wants to behave like a “real American” in mid-town, but his wife always makes fun of his pretension. Still she would wear her best formal dress to match her husband in all seriousness.

The dinner will always be followed by a movie or a show or a boat ride on Hudson River, depending on how successful the business has been for the past 12 months. Ayun and her husband Tram have always enjoyed the annual office dinner, except this year. Ayun is quite dismayed when she hears the conversation between her husband Tram and her boss Ku. The two talk about Fifi, the robot. Ku says Fifi is useless and it is not even worth the space it occupies in their cramped office closet.

Tram replies, “I would like to have Fifi if you want to get rid it. Is that right, Ayun? We want Fifi.”

Ayun almost growls and screams, but she has enough self control to feign an agreement, which she has been in the habit of providing to her husband or her boss, no matter how much she dislikes their ideas.

So the next thing she knows, Fifi is loaded into their car after their dinner and their Hudson River night cruise. And then they drive back to New Jersey. Along the way, Ayun tries to think how she should deal with Fifi, but she is too tired to come up with any idea.

The following day is a Sunday. Tram sets up the robot and plays with it all day long as if he is still a kid. Ayun tries to get him to do some house chores, but to no avail.

“Look, Fifi has reverse engineered the expensive fermented rice we bought from the store. Remember we tried to reproduce it at home but we couldn’t. Now I know why since Fifi gives me a list, including what kind of sticky rice and what kind of yeast and what kind of process. So let’s make it ourselves.” Tram says excitedly.

“Look, Fifi has given us a map and an illustration–how to rearrange our furniture to achieve maximum aesthetic appeal. Fifi even provides recommendations, together with pictures, on how to place our Asian items among American furniture.” Tram says to Ayun, who walks past him on her way to the backyard to air dry the laundry.

“Look, Fifi takes a picture of my wardrobe and comes up with all these ideas for my outfit for different occasions and different days of the week. And Fifi also suggests that I should do the following purchase according to our clothing budget.” Tram says to Ayun when they are having dinner.

“But I usually take care of your wardrobe…” Ayun says.

“Honey, Fifi is relieving you of such responsibilities. Fifi can plan anything. You know, when Andy goes to college, we will sell this house and go to live in a place with less property tax. Fifi has already planned that out for us, taking into consideration of our commute routes, housing prices, neighborhood, access to Asian grocery stores, potential flood threat in the area, rush hour traffic condition. Of course the housing market in the future is still a variable.” Tram says and then gets up to hug Fifi, which is being placed in the kitchen at the moment. Tram intends to let Fifi evaluate their current kitchen and come up with a plan for remodeling which combines convenience, beauty, economy, tidiness etc.

“Thank you for the hug. That’s very affectionate.” Fifi says in a sweet human voice, “however you have disrupted my process of drawing a plan to rearrange your Asian spices, which are currently being thrown into a drawer in disarray.”

Ayun thinks that Fifi is insufferable, almost like her mother or her mother-in-law.

“Hear that? Fifi is very affectionate too. It is quite outspoken of its emotions. Isn’t that amazing?” Tram says.

“We can’t have something like a spice rack. That’s for Italian kitchen or something. We Asians use more spices to achieve bold flavors. Our spices come in bulks and in varied packages, which cannot be arranged neatly on a cute and small spice rack.” Ayun says.

“Don’t worry. Fifi will help you solve this spice problem and put spices in a certain kind of organization that will be as neatly laid out as those in a cooking show. How good Fifi is, don’t you think?” Tram says.

At night, when Tram is taking a shower, Ayun comes downstairs to see if she can do something about Fifi. As she is typing on Fifi’s keyboard, it suddenly says, “Danger, danger, under attack. Input module temporarily shut down. Go into protective hibernation.”

Ayun is taken aback. The robot has probably remembered when she fed it wrong information in the law office. After her successful sabotage, Fifi has remembered her. Now she cannot type on its keyboard anymore.

“Well, whether I can type or not on your keyboard, whether you like it or not, I am going to do it so that you will not look so smart and smug here.” Ayun says.

But what can she do? How can she destroy or get rid of Fifi while pretending to love Fifi in front of Tram? Suddenly an idea comes up.

(To Be Continued Here)