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Once Upon a Time, In a Land, Far, Far Away, There lived a pair of Siamese twin
robots. They lived on a kidney-shaped island in the Straight of Magellan, just
off of the Cape of Good Hope. One of the twins kind of loved being attached to
the other, who didn't enjoy the situation at all. Needless to say, this created
years of discomfort. But what could they really do about it? They were Siamese
twin robots. Their creator, Doctor L____., wore sepia-tone aviator sunglasses and a white Panama Jack hooded sweatshirt, with the hood always up. He also wore a loose white cape, (in actuality a bed sheet) to cover his swollen, corpulent, gray, spotted flesh. Doctor L____. had come to the island years ago with the idea of starting a tropical vacation lodge for tourists on a budget. He bought the island from the United States Government, who'd used it as a nuclear missile testing site in the 1950's. Doctor L____. named the island "Doctor L____. Island." It was a modest place--only two square miles in size. And practically all of its trees, plants, flowers, and animals had long since vanished from the incessant, deadly pounding of high-powered, neurotoxic explosives. The price was right, though, and after all, thought Doctor L____., how many men can say they own their own island? Every week, a twin-propeller plane from the far-off resort colony would fly by, dropping supplies: frozen burritos, gasoline, batteries, fruit juice, soda pop, plastic forks and knives, etc.. The supplies would float down in a small wooden crate, attached to a disposable parachute. Those deliveries were the doctor's only direct contact with the outside world. He'd certainly never managed to attract any guests. The tourist set preferred the lush, verdant comforts and civilized niceties of the far-off resort colony to the stark isolation of Doctor L____.'s arid island, where tiny palm tree clusters jutted only infrequently from the dry land's sun-baked crust. A guest did stop by once. She was a lonely German woman from a sporty sea-cruiser who arrived wearing a turquoise cocktail dress, and holding a small, rhinestone-encrusted bag. She stayed for just two days in one of Doctor L____.'s many motel bungalows. This woman was very lonely indeed but, for some reason, unwilling to make conversation with Doctor L____. As the years passed, Doctor L____. grew to decide that isolation is not such a bad thing. He had electrical generators to power his microwave oven and satellite dish. And he had the expansiveness of the infinite sea before him, to power his belief that almost anything, probably, can happen. And "At least," he would often say to himself, "I'll never be half as fucked as those Siamese twin robots."
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