#please be constructive

People have always had a knack for automatization.

Fully automating something means you've reached the ceiling in this specific area. There. Nowhere higher to go. You can produce an item without ever lifting a finger. A machine will do it and then distribute the item to anyone who wants it. Of course, you can improve the automatization by tweaking it, making it faster, making it more precise, making the item it produces better, but you will eventually stand down and say that that's it. This is your Magnum Opus. Sometimes it's good. This is the reason the shelves of grocery shops are fully stocked. But sometimes people try to automate something that doesn't... "support" it. Can you imagine? An item that is so complex, so intricate, that giving a machine a command to recreate it will simply break it! Make it useless. More to that, even less than useless. Worthless.

It may be fine for general public. After all, who cares about who or what created their item? It works - it's good. Nobody would look into it too much. But if you know how the item works, how it's created, how it's supposed to look like - you will immediately call a bluff. You will find hundreds of ways you could do it better. Eventually, you'll conclude that it's only advantage is it's price and time spent.

And then you will find out that these are the only advantages people need, and lose faith in most of the humanity.

The first thing she does when she picks it up is complain about the names of the characters. I hastily throw out some excuse, not understanding why she’s complaining about Gaelic names when she watches anime with complicated Japanese names all the time (not that they’re similar, but they’re not in any way easier). About halfway through the ten-page story, my coworker picks up her phone and spends the next fifteen minutes texting her friends or whatever. I’m wondering whether I should just ask for my story back, but she picks it back up a while later. She finishes it, hands it back to me, and states, “[X character] is such a wimp!” “Oh, but it was a really interesting story!” she hastily adds a few seconds later.

I laugh everything off at the moment, but when I get back from work and am revising my story again, all I can think is, “This is really stupid, isn’t it?” I bury my story under a pile of homework. “Thinking it’s good enough to enter into a writing contest is stupid, anyway.”

“Oh, God, I gotta get out of here.” The dog's owner was a young man, somewhere between an expiring teenager and a fresh-produce adult, skin colored a shade deeper than the dark brown fur on the bloodied head of the dog, hair close-cropped to his scalp. He pulled at the sleeve of his purple button-down, then at his striped necktie.

“I'm sorry,” I said again. I don't think I sounded sorry. I wasn't; I felt terrified more than anything else. I had not the instinctual sympathy for dogs that characterized a majority of the human race but I did value self-preservation, and at that second, my palms were sweating about the accusations that would soon bombard me. People were very passionate about dogs. Take that old lady in the lane next to mine, who'd also stopped her car (a banged-up pick-up truck filled with bicycle parts and pool noodles) for example: she'd made a theatrical performance of prancing out of her Toyota and withdrawing her phone from her purse to, gallantly and loudly, call 911.

“No need for that, ma'am,” the young man told her, then to me, “Hey, I'm not letting you go this easily, but I really, really don't want the cops to come.” He sounded exceptionally calm for someone who'd just had their dog ran over and who really, really didn't want the cops to come. His tone reminded me of a live representative dealing with difficult customers over the phone.

“Ok,” I said.

The young man knelt by the dead dog and sighed, stroking a white, furry ear that flapped in the freeway wind like flimsy toilet paper. From the mess of blood and fur I made out a female Yorkie, and the unstained patches of its silver-white coat rather silky and gleaming of health. Its face was lost—I did run it over with both front and back tires—and a few knocked out teeth that looked like tiny sharp pearls rolled near it.

“What was her name?” I felt it appropriate to ask.

“Annie,” he said. “She's a Hong Kong girl.” Then, eyes snapping up as if finally registering that he's talking to a live person, that was, me, he added, “Oh, my name is Charlie-Chuck.”

“I'm Lian.”

He muttered my name under his breath to test it, pronouncing it Lee-Anne like most people did. Awkwardly we shook hands. There was a smear of dog blood on his palm that transferred to me. He didn't mean it, I'm sure, but that shadow of red on my index finger felt like a stamp of some important contract—ones that read: you killed my dog. I'll be civil with you but you better not forget this.

The old lady who'd called 911 still stood there, clogging up her own lane and waiting for a show. Charlie-Chuck frowned and asked if I had a plastic bag.

“Yeah, I'll be a sec.” I went to my car and found a pink THANK YOU bag from the groceries last week and tossed out the receipt inside. As with the handshake, the coloration and literature on the bag doomed me with reluctance.

Charlie-Chuck didn't seem to mind. He scooped up what used to be Hong Kong-born Annie and bagged her, dripping warm blood and all, like she was a head of cabbage or a bundle of celery. I tied the neatest knot I could and cringed again over the inappropriate prettiness. Charlie-Chuck took he bag to his car.

“Hey.” He waved me over. He was struggling with a cooler on the floorboard of his backseat, and after emptying it of its canned sodas and juices, dropped the corpse (in the bag) into the cooler. “Want a drink?” He held out a Coca-Cola to me. I shook my head and he shrugged, then pulled out his wallet.

“Take yours out, too,” he said.

I did. He took it from me and gave me his.

“Not that I don't trust you, miss, you're really nice,” he said. “But just in case.”

I said “ok, that's reasonable”, and though I felt empty without my wallet I knew it wasn't anything compared to what the guy was going through, no matter how detached he's acting. Just one thing bothered me: why was he avoiding the police with such vigor?

He got into his car and, obviously meaning for me to follow him, led the way on the freeway to San Francisco, which was somewhat of a relief because I'd been on my way back there before the accident.

The toll booths approached, and I searched my pockets for my wallet. Then I remembered that I didn't have it. Charlie-Chuck's, though, was squashed into my cup-holder, and I picked up its coin-laden weight and riiiiip, went the Velcro.

He had a credit card, a library card, a few coupons and bank receipts stuffed in there, and a couple of crumpled ones in the cash slot. On the clear plastic compartment where one's photo ID should be, there was a photo without the ID, of a young woman in a red, frilly dress, her hair in cornrows, tied off with matching red beads.

“Lian! What's up?” a shrill, familiar voice called.

I was still inspecting the wallet, and had subconsciously inched my car up to the booth. I had a job here, working the toll for the Bay Bridge, and today, Thursday, was my day off. The woman that greeted me was a coworker, Angeles.

“I ran over a dog,” I said.

She pitched forward from her booth. “What?”

“It's ok, it's ok. The owner isn't giving me too hard of a time.” I paused. “Yet.”

“Good luck with that, honey,” Angeles waved me through. “Not gonna charge you that four bucks, you got enough on your hands.”

“Oh, no, I gotta pay.”

“No you don't. Remember that time old Morris cheated that ten bucks off of you?” Angeles snuffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Well I stole it back from him. You're welcome. I'll give the rest of it when you're back tomorrow.”

I crossed onto the Bay Bridge and rolled down all my windows, letting the wind tear in. Was this what Charlie-Chuck felt when his dog jumped out of the rear window? With the wind whu-whu-whipping so loud he didn't notice that the small silver blur had gone overboard until he heard the futile screech of my brakes?

Too soon the Bridge rolled off my tires, and I scrolled the windows back up because my eyes were watering. Charlie-Chuck's red SUV plunged steadily ahead into the heart of the city.

We ended up in _____. He pulled over and into the driveway of a peach-colored house, the windows and doors rimmed with a bright orange that matched prettily. Charlie-Chuck got out of his car, motioned with an “X” formation of his hands for me to cut my engine and stay low.

He ascended the stairs to the front door of the house and, after searching his pants pockets, produced a lanyard

pulled taut with keys. But before he could open the door, the door opened by itself—no, not so—by a girl. After a few blinks I cross-matched her with the young woman in Charlie-Chuck's wallet. I fished out the photo for confirmation.

She looked much older in the picture than she did now, leaning her shoulder on the door frame. About 17, 19 at most I'd say. Her hair had lost its cornrows, replaced by strands that hung stiffly straight. The outdoor lamp which had automatically turned on the moment the door sprang turned her raised shoulder to deep copper. If people had gemstones under their skin, Charlie-Chuck's would be purple sapphire, and the girl's would be the fieriest ruby.

They exchanged no more than twenty seconds of dialogue, and the door closed again, engulfing the girl.

Charlie-Chuck hopped down the stairs and gestured at my car door. I unlocked it for him.

“I'm guessing we should talk?” he said.

“Well, yes,” I said. This guy was much too relaxed about me hitting his Hong Kong Yorkie. The lamp light on the now-empty doorway faded, and I added, “Who was that?”

“My sister.” Charlie-Chuck ducked into my backseat and sat, warily, among the scatter of tissue boxes and unwashed laundry that had occupied the space before him. I felt hot and wanted to go rake up the mess.

“What's her name?” In my mind I had a potential list typed and printed, Times New Roman size twelve double spaced: Phoenix, maybe. Florence, Anastasia, Alexandria. The kind of name someone with copper-armor skin would have. I'd gone into a trance in my name-prediction that I didn't register what Charlie-Chuck's answer was. Something -er, I distantly caught. Esther? Heather?

“I'm sorry, can you repeat that?” I made him a smile.

“Bluebird,” he said.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Did you... tell her about the dog?”

“No, I said I'm bringing Annie out with me and few friends. I was driving her back from her dogsitter when—” Here he stopped and looked outside the window like he wanted to make sure Bluebird didn't hear.

The same bile that had trickled up my throat moments after the accident resurfaced, bitter and sour, and I put my hands over my face and rubbed my eyes.

“Let me go up and apologize,” I said.

“Oh, you don't need to. I'll handle it.”

“Hey, you already let me off with the police,” I pointed out. “I'm not even gonna question why you were trying to avoid them.”

“It's bad luck, ok?” I saw Charlie-Chuck cross his arms through my rear view window. “I don't want to deal with them when I have something important coming up.”

“Mister.” I twisted around in my seat and looked him in the eye. “You're being very suspicious—”

“I just don't want them bothering me. They're gonna jinx up my luck. I got an important ______ tomorrow.”

“—You're not even going to charge—”

“Well I didn't get to that part yet.”

Out the corner of my eye I caught a flutter of movement. The orange curtains drew its thick fabric back. Bluebird strutted up to the dirty, cloudy glass and slapped a soapy red washcloth onto its surface, then began scrubbing.

“Look.” I returned my attention to Charlie-Chuck. “I can't just do nothing. You're going to guilt-trip me and I'll stay awake for days thinking about this.”

“Yo, you're a good person, Miss Lian. You're making me feel sorry for you, goddamn.”

“How much should I pay for the dog?”

“Duck down,” Charlie-Chuck hissed.

I bent down, almost slamming my face onto the steering wheel. Then cautiously I angled my eyes up a bit and caught Bluebird, the red washcloth limp in her hand, squinting at my car. I tried to shrink smaller. The next time I looked up, she was gone; the curtains were closed.

The AT&T ring tone sounded. “Aw, phone call,” Charlie-Chuck muttered. “H'llo?”

“What? Oh,” he said. “No, I don't know.” Pause. “Um, go ahead, I guess?”

After he hung up, Charlie-Chuck chuckled, and I heard my car door open, then close.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and waited for me to get out. A sliver of a grin escaped from his pinched lips.

I stepped out of the car, too, and stood mirroring his posture. “What's going on?”

“Your car, Miss,” he said slowly, like an award presenter syllables away from the winner's name. “Is about to get towed.”