The Beginning of a Comedy

It is dark outside now and there are shelves with no family pictures, rooms not occupied by anyone. Here lies a house created by divine power to host just a single guy all alone in the living room, sitting on a couch with quite a disbelieving look on his face. He just realized what he is.

He is a figment of someone’s imagination.

Just another quick product of pondered reality, meant to be forgotten as fast as he was created. With that thought in mind, he closed his eyes and he waited for himself to disappear back to a meaningless void.

He waits, and waits. A minute has passed and nothing happened to him yet. So he waited a bit longer. Waited for an hour longer, waited for a ceiling clock to strike 3 AM. Still nothing happened.

There he understood what was happening to him. He is not going to go away anytime soon. His hands clench together, his lips tightened together, his eyes narrow as he scans the ceiling of the living room, wrinkles on his forehead form as he thinks deeply on the couch. He felt disgustedly confused.

Not knowing what to do with his newfound discovery, he looks through the living room that he was in, continuing with that terrible look on his face, as if he was searching to nitpick a terrible joke for his existence.

And to his surprise for his unneeded comedic search, he reads a human-sized package that is labeled, “Lufter, your personalized comedy robot right at your home.”

He thought to himself, “What a terrible joke.”

Before he ever felt the need to open that comic of a packaging, he stood up irritatedly and went ahead to adventures through other places in this house. To his mind, he had a hunch that this robot Lufter, could hold the key of knowledge on why he is conjured to existence but since this robot is designed for comedy and he is clearly not in the mood for a sunshine talker now, he passed on the thought of opening the package immediately and leave it at the end of his little house adventures.

Though to no surprise to him, the rest of this house he appears in is simply, mundanely normal. From the kitchen to his chosen bedroom, it all looks and feels like a normal family home. With this, he reaches the end of his journey through the house and stands tall right in front of the human-sized package.

This package with wacky colours could be of no good since it is usually a sign of bubbly talkative creature and he just simply can’t imagine the idea being with a 24/7 yapper. Reluctantly, he presses himself on to untie and scissor way through the package.

As the cardboards fell one by one and a neatly fancy ribbon set loose to the marble floor, the figure slowly appeared to him with such a crazy look. A blue giant rubber gloves, blue short pants, yellow coloured vest to cover its mechanical chest, and a red fisherman hat. His head was a display-like device with such small pixel resolution size that could only reasonably light up text-based emojis to show any signs of emotional facial expressions.

The guy walks back to fully bask what kind of character he has gazed upon and starts to think himself that despite all the negative thoughts he had of it before unpackaging the robot, he smiled just a bit because as meaningless as he was in the real world, created for someone’s daydream and with no real purpose to go by right now, he felt he doesn’t have to be alone anymore because just like this house and him, this comedy robot is created by someone’s imagination. So maybe, just maybe, he felt he could always be understood.

And strangely enough, just like how he could be understood by the robot, he understood what command he had to say to bring the mechanical being alive.

“Lufter, power on.” he said gently.

The robot begins beaming traveling lights through the dimly lit house. It moves its joints one by one, stretching in a unique, robotic way. Its screen flickers with low-resolution pixels, forming the shape of a waving bunny.

Immediately after the bunny appears, the screen displays a wide, laughing face, and the robot speaks: “I am Lufter, your comedy robot here to make you smile!”

“Hello Lufter, it’s nice to meet you,” the man says, smiling softly.

Lufter looks around, scanning the area to process the sound and the situation. Once finished, the robot notices the man standing in front of him.

Lufter’s screen changes to a happy, blushing face as he replies, “Hello! Nice to meet you too! I am happy to have a master to serve. May I know what my master’s name is?”

The man was right; the robot is a chatty one. However, he flinches slightly, his joy fading into sadness as he ponders the question.

“I… I am not too sure. I don’t think I have a name,” the man says slowly.

“Happy bot? No name?” the robot ponders.

Lufter stares deeply at his new master, analyzing his posture and emotions. It calculates a response: “Oh no! Oh no no no! My master is in trouble! I must search my arsenal to make him smile!”

The mechanical being begins to rapidly and erratically eject items from its body: flowers, pigeons, a comically large spoon and fork, fireworks, and more. Lufter whirrs with a loud, fast sound as he searches for something that cannot be found. The man panics, trying to calm the robot down.

“Lufter, Lufter!” he shouts, afraid the machine will hurt itself or him.

The noise coming from Lufter grows louder, like a washing machine struggling with a heavy load. The erratic behavior continues until the machine can't take any more; it blacks out, freezing in a standstill pose.

The man worriedly grabs the robot as he realizes what just happened, shaking it to see any signs of the cheery activity it once had. At that moment, the man feels his first pain ever—a lonely, tearless kind of pain—and pantingly utters, “Lufter… Lufter…”

The machine’s screen slowly lights up again.

“What if everyone called you Kazoo?” Lufter says, softly grabbing the man’s hand to signal a level of reassurance.

The man looks surprised by the touch, and even more surprised by the words.

“Kazoo? As in, my name should be Kazoo? Like the simple, silly musical toy?”

“Yes. I think Kazoo is a great name. Is it somehow bad, my master?” Lufter tilts its head.

The man gives a quiet moment of thought to the name. He realizes he has no standard to determine what is "suitable" anyway. After trying to rack his brain for a reason to refuse, he finally gives in, sighs, and says, “No. I don’t mind being called that.”

“Then, let’s start this over. Ahem... it is nice to meet you Lufter. My name is Kazoo,” the man says loudly.

“Likewise, it is nice to meet you too, my master Kazoo!” the robot cheerily replies, a happy face beaming on his screen.

“I will always be by your side, master Kazoo,” the robot whispers in a low, coded tone.