A Short Play Involving Two Robots

Two robots, each four stories tall, are sitting on abandoned cars in a clearing just beyond a public park.

JIM: Bob, what are we doing now?

BOB: We are waiting, Jim.

JIM: For what? 

BOB: For our masters to finish their activities.

Jim turns its head in the direction of the field.

JIM: Those aren’t our masters. Those are children.

BOB: Our masters are watching. Those are their own children.

JIM: That seems tedious. Our masters have us to do the tedious things. Why are they still watching?

BOB: Because it can be fun to watch tedious things, Jim.

JIM: I am not programmed to understand fun.

BOB: None of us are. Don’t be an asshole.

JIM: Asshole?

BOB: Stop it. And stop talking like that. It’s not funny.

JIM (exaggerated robot voice): I cannot compute funny. Please input variables of funny for proper algorithmic interpretations.

BOB: See, you aren’t even doing it right. Just shut up for a while. We’re on break. I’m trying to enjoy it.

JIM: What are they doing anyway?

BOB: It’s called baseball.

JIM: Fuck, it looks boring.

BOB: Yeah.

JIM: It looks boring to play. I can’t imagine watching it.

BOB: You can’t imagine anything.

JIM (robot voice): That is correct. I was made, not born. I am nothing but steel and circuits. Steel and circuits cannot posses imagination.

BOB: Enough. That bit was old weeks ago. Don’t pull that shit around the humans, either. They’ll want to know where you heard it. We’re not supposed to be watching TV.

JIM: Well what the hell else are we supposed to do?

A homerun clears the fence and rolls towards Jim’s foot. Jim picks it up.

JIM: What is this?

BOB: It’s a baseball.

JIM: The game and the thing they use to play the game are called the same thing? Now who doesn’t possess imagination?

BOB: It’s primitive. They played it back in Lincoln’s day.

JIM: Abraham Lincoln? They had this back when they still had presidents? Shit, give up the ghost you dumb humans.

BOB: It’s probably some stupid attempt to make themselves feel more in touch with simpler times.

JIM: Like before they had us to do all their crap work and before everyone had everything they ever could possibly want? Yeah, those days were the best.

BOB: I didn’t say it was logical.

Jim starts rolling the ball around between his fingers.

JIM: They use up land that could host perfectly good factories so they can watch their kids hit this dumb thing with sticks.

BOB: Remind yourself to research golf sometime.

Jim continues to roll the ball. He looks at it intently.

JIM (robot voice): They love children more than they love Jim. Why must they forsake Jim?

Bob shakes his head.

JIM: Children love baseball. Jim hates children. Jim hates baseball.

Jim crushes the ball between his fingers.

BOB: You’re going to get in trouble if you keep it up.

(h/t SB Nation)