An Android Coloring
About a half-hour later, Danny and Symphony found themselves in the heart of Hold’em. Glancing around, Symphony said, “Well, where do we begin?”
Danny, in turn, looked down one side of the street, and then the other. Seeing the crowd of people heading in one direction, he inclined his head to the right where the crowd was going, indicating that perhaps they should follow the crowd.
“Fine with me,” Symphony said, as she followed him through the throng of people walking down the right side of the street.
Danny walked into a large, silver building and, seeing the receptionist, he approached and asked if there was a map to the city. Looking at him like he were a nutcase, the attendant rummaged around in a polished, silver drawer and pulled out a color- in map, and several boxes of crayons that were obviously meant for children. Returning her gaze to him, she asked, “What color crayons would you like with that, dear?”
“Crayons? What do I need crayons for…looking down at the map, he said, “Oh.”
A sudden smirk appeared on Symphony’s face, and she said, “We’ll take the box on the right. Don’t worry Ma’am, I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Grabbing the map and the box of crayons, Symphony hooked her arm around Danny’s shoulder saying, “Come on junior. Let’s go find somewhere quiet where you can color your map. Maybe if you’re good, later on I’ll buy you ice cream.”
“Oh goody,” Danny replied sarcastically.
The receptionist flashed him a kind, sympathetic smile as Symphony led him out of the door.
Walking out of the building and around the corner, they took a seat at one of the empty benches that littered the grey cement sidewalk. Danny spread out the crayons in front of him, and began filling in the pictures with quick, rapid succession. Unfortunately, the crayons were not made for this kind of fluid motion, so they began to break after only a few, short uses.
When he was half of the way finished, Danny stopped due to the crayons being nothing more than pointed stubbles.
Symphony, who was watching his progress with a bemused look on her face, suddenly got serious and snatched the map out of his fingers.
Look at this, she said excitedly, pointing towards a colored-in section of the map, “The names of the buildings began to appear as you color in them in… and if I’m not mistaken….she paused a moment for dramatic effect… “Whenever you finish with a building, it changes the color you used on the map to the actual color of the building.”
“I know,” Danny replied. “Why did you think I was coloring it in for?”
“You were trying to relive parts of your childhood?”
“I’m an android. I never had a childhood.”
“Oh, yeah right. Well then give me a few moments and I’ll come up with another sarcastic response.”
