COLOSSAL HELLO KITTY ROBOT By Frank Grigonis
First thing I did after hitting the number was pay some out-of-work robotocist to build a colossal Hello Kitty. She was my first robot and considering what happened next, she won’t be my last. Acclimating myself to the owner’s manual tied my brain into long, blue balloons. But I eventually broke through and had her walking upright and flying too. Then I asked some pissed-off genius GI Joe selling homemade grenades in front of the VA if he could load the robot’s arms with surface to air missiles, and he said he’d try. But adding that feature to the remote control was yet another matter, which led to that unfortunate incident involving the Boeing airliner packed with traveling bankers. Collateral damage, if you will. And we did, Hello Kitty and I; but our main mission would occur come Super Bowl Sunday when the New York Jets were to battle the Cleveland Browns. My initial plan being to fly the robot onto the field and to have her flip off some fans and maybe a Fox TV cameraman or three. But when I spotted all the cow-faced, sign-waving Michael Vick supporters, I knew that a mere gesture of contempt just wouldn’t do. So from my nearby yet undisclosed location I had the big Kitty extend her arm, then shoot the first missile out through the opening in her palm. Without going into gory details, let’s just say that it shocked the nation and that if I felt like Clint Eastwood it was because those Vick lovers had made my day. But even so, I wasn’t finished: I hadn’t yet “spoken” to my hometown, so I had the kitty extend her other arm, toward the Cleveland side this time, and the second missile sang across the rusty sky. Soon after, at some greasy spoon, as I was savoring my decaf coffee, the boob one booth over disrupted my reverie by asking if I’d heard anything about the game, and what I thought about this or that player, as though I asked random strangers if they prefer Wendy Xu to Charles Bukowski. And when he said “Too bad I couldn’t get tickets” I simply nodded, smiled and agreed. Author bio: Frank Grigonis writes fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in PANK, Whiskey Island, Bareback Magazine, Every Day Fiction and other journals.