Wednesday 30 December 2015

Story: 'Diary of a Laundry Robot', Week V

( Week IV , Week VI )

Monday

Everyone seems to be called 'Querg' here. I want to ask my new supervisor Querg about that, but don't feel quite ready to enquire. I'm already busy enough taking care of all the Bureau of History's hats, and am beginning to fall behind. Every single Querg has a hat with a bobble, and the different colours of material, lining and bobble indicate what exactly it is that that Querg does. My supervisor's hat has a red material, which indicates an association with the Books, a white bobble of secondary affiliation with History, and the red lining of a Querg on active field duty. He explained this to me when he he established the Laundry in the Bureau's basement. It's a massive Laundry compared to the old one, with all kinds of unusual apparatus. The new experience is thrilling! Today I learnt all about extra-dimensional bobble care!

Tuesday

My supervisor has been true to his word, and Celia has joined me here in the Bureau Laundry. We had a lovely reunion, where we talked about the novelty of it all, and then Querg took her away for her orientation. It will be so nice to have a companion during the rinsing run. I wonder how Bobbie is getting on back at home? Might she have destroyed the place by now, or would my successor have managed to keep the place in one piece? My own orientation was a brief process, where it was explained to me that I no longer needed to recharge thanks to a slight redesign and the nature of the Continuum itself. Apparently, machines are fixed to be self-sustaining here. How strange!

Wednesday

Our contracts have arrived, and are quite unexpected. Apparently we are going to get weekends off, and have free licence to explore the Querg Continuum as we wish. The concept of free time for a laundry robot is almost nonsensical. I don't quite understand what it we are supposed to do. Celia is equally perplexed. This might be linked to the prevailing idea that we're sentient robots. Don't they understand that we only know laundry? I wonder what BoomBoom would say about all this. He was always such a refreshing maintenance therapist. Celia just this morning pointed out that we don't have maintenance any more. How scary! Almost as scary as the Grand High Querg's hat, which came in this morning. It's three times as long as the others, and reputedly trips him up several times a day! We're almost afraid to touch it!

Thursday

Supervisor Querg introduced us to our maintenance Querg this morning, and he seemed very nice. He even offered to show us around the area on Saturday, as part of our introduction to the Continuum. Apparently this whole land exists in a state of -- <logic circuits suspended> -- temporal grace, outside of the universe as we know it. I can not even pretend to understand, but Celia looked very excited and interested, and her diodes lit up like Venusian tree decorations. I believe she was more flexibly programmed. The maintenance Querg has a green hat, which he said is linked to staffing and recruitment, a blue lining for home duty, and a white bobble again for a secondary link to History. Most Quergs seem to have white bobbles, as far as I can tell.

Friday

The last day of our first week has arrived, and it seems to have gone very well. Both of our Quergs have said we performed well, and now all we have to do is return the Grand High Querg's hat in pristine condition, and then work out how this 'free time' phenomenon is supposed to work. Celia is getting very excited, but my concern is how we're going to get around in this strange land. Do these Quergs even have parks? We work in a basement, yes, but part of the area is without building above, and the sky through the glass is fascinating. We have begun to talk about what we might find out there. Could there be neck-ties????

To be continued...

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