Come back tomorrow for the finale of The Melancholy Robot!
The robot watched the man purchase a hot dog from the vendor. It mimicked the man’s actions – moving its jaw hinge up and down, chewing imaginary food. Its jaw made a grinding sound since it wasn’t created for this purpose. It knew that food would ruin its mechanisms and internal clogs, and that it had no swallowing apparatus. So the robot looked away.
Today’s art was created by Jessica Smith.
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged art, beauty, dennis finocchiaro, eating, entertainment, fiction, flash fiction, food, funny, hot dog vendor, hot dogs, humor, Jessica Smith, kitsch, life, people, robot who wants to be human, robot who wants to eat, sad, The Melancholy Robot, writing
The robot approached a sign that said YMCA and curiosity got the better of it. Upon entering, its glass optical units fogged over and it was forced to wipe them with its robot hands. It had entered a dangerous area with one of its natural enemies, humidity, and it knew this but just had to investigate. It watched the humans, with much less covering than they usually wore, jumping into a big bluish pool of water. They laughed, smiled, exercised, it seemed to the robot to be a happy place for them. One ran and a man with a loud implement in his mouth forced the child to slow down with a piercing noise. The robot heard someone yell “Cannonball!” and as he hit the water a little sprayed the robot, and it knew it had to leave. This was no place for a metallic man.
Artwork by Ryan Vecci. Go to www.laserbaked.blogspot.com for Ryan’s website. The last two installments of The Melancholy Robot will come next week, but for now check out the old stories.
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged activity, art, beauty, cannonball, childhood, children, dennis finocchiaro, entertainment, exercise, family, fiction, flash fiction, friends, friendship, funny, graphic novel, humor, illustration, life, life guards, people, pools, robot, Ryan Vecci, sad, swimming, writing, YMCA
The robot reached the top of the hill and spotted a sign that said City Dump; it looked over the mounds of garbage, piled all the way to a distant river. The robot felt as close to sad as it could; it recognized humankind’s vast wastefulness, clearer now than it was in the city. It could not fathom why they refused to mulch what they could, why some ignored recycling when areas like this dump could be so easily avoided.
The robot wanted to do something about it, but what could one mechanical being do?
Today’s art is created by the talented Emily Homrok. Emily is co-editor of Pitbull Magazine and is available as a freelance artist. Email her at ehomrok@gmail.com if you wish to contact her!
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged art, beauty, being green, dennis finocchiaro, emily homrok, entertainment, environment, fiction, flash fiction, life, mulching, overpopulation, people, recycling, sad, saving the world, trash, writing
The robot walked through the art museum trying to understand the why behind art. Lots of small dots created a pond scene. A bronze statue of a ballerina. A can of soup. It could not fathom why humans created it. They should focus on needs: food, drink, clean air and water. As it walked, it failed to notice the child sitting on the floor finger painting as his mother copied a nearby Van Gogh. The kid looked up at it and said, “Hey!” forcing the mechanical man to look down at the marble flooring. It had stepped in the kid’s red paint and tracked its footprint onto a clean sheet of paper.
“Sorry,” it said to the child. As it tried to leave, the boy tapped the robot’s shoulder and handed over the sheet with the red footprint.
“You made it. You should keep it,” the kid said.
Today’s artwork is created by the talented Richard Holt. Click on the image for his blog.
Be sure to follow the rest of The Melancholy Robot story from last week. It continues this week as well.
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged Andy Warhol, art, art museums, beauty, childhood, children, Claude Monet, collaboration, creation, dennis finocchiaro, entertainment, family, fiction, fingerpaints, flash fiction, friends, friendship, illustration, kids, life, love, people, pictures, Richard Holt, robots, sad, the arts, understanding art, Vincent Van Gogh, writing
The robot sat on the metro, speeding quickly to its destination. The train slowed, stopped, hissed. A couple got on, holding hands, and sat across from it.
The robot noticed how close they sat to each other compared to other passengers. They started to kiss as it watched. It tried to comprehend why humans kiss. The action served no useful function that it could see, yet the robot found itself yearning for its own partner to kiss.
It rotated its head to a window and looked at the reflection.
It had no lips.
Artwork by the wonderful and talented Kira Bang-Olsson. Check out her website or click on the artwork for her blog. To read the rest of The Melancholy Robot stories, click here.
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged art, beauty, couples, dating, dennis finocchiaro, entertainment, fiction, flash fiction, friends, funny, humor, illustration, Kira Bang-Olsson, kissing, kitsch, life, love, marriage, Metro, people, pictures, relationships, robot, robots, romance, sad, The Melancholy Robot, very short story, vss, writing
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This time story AND art both by me. I wanted to get into the act 🙂
The Melancholy Robot is a collection of flash fiction stories about a robot who wishes he were human. It focuses on its daily life and small experiences. I’ve asked different artists to do renditions of the stories; a different artist creates art every day inspired by the story. It’s been a fun experiment so far, I hope you enjoy!
Check out the other Melancholy Robot stories here.
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged art, beauty, butterflies, caterpillars, dennis finocchiaro, entertainment, fiction, flash fiction, funny, humor, illustration, life, nature, people, pictures, robot, robots, sad, The Melancholy Robot, writing
The Melancholy Robot is a collection of flash fiction stories about a robot who wishes he were human. It focuses on its daily life and small experiences. I’ve asked different artists to do renditions of the stories; a different artist creates art every day inspired by the story. It’s been a fun experiment so far, I hope you enjoy!
The robot stood in the park watching a dog defecate on the grass. A little girl approached the metallic man.
“Hi.” It looked down into her impossibly blue eyes. “What’s your name?”
The robot turned its attention back to the dog.
“I have no name.”
“Everybody has a name.”
“Not me.”
“That’s sad.” The little girl skipped away and the robot watched as she stepped in the fresh shit.
Artwork by the lovely and talented Kate Hiscock. Click the image for her blog or click here.
If you enjoyed this, check out the other robot stories featuring different artists here and here. And please, like my Facebook page.
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged art, beauty, child, childhood, children, dennis finocchiaro, dogs, dogs shit, entertainment, fiction, flash fiction, friends, friendship, funny, girl, humor, kate hiscock, kid, life, names, people, poop jokes, relationships, robot, sad, slightly me, stepping in dog poop, the importance of a name, The Melancholy Robot, writing
Today’s story is by me and artwork was created by Zach Rodis. Visit his website by clicking on the image or check out his blog.
Check out yesterday’s robot story here.
And if you enjoy my work, please like my Facebook Page!
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged art, beauty, dennis finocchiaro, entertainment, fiction, flash fiction, funny, humor, illustrations, office workers, people, relationships, robot, sad robot, sad workers, the daily grind, work, writing, zach rodis
I’m introducing my upcoming series of flash fiction pieces titled The Melancholy Robot for a reason. I’ve written a bunch of very short stories about a sad robot and asked for volunteers in the artistic community, mostly in the Philadelphia area, but also with a little help from some friends from afar. So far I’ve gotten a good response from people, so I’m excited to tell you that coming on Monday will be the first installment of
If you are an artist who would like to get in on this, please comment here with your email and I will gladly get back to you. Otherwise, I hope everyone enjoys the new short series. Each artist volunteer is given a vss (very short story) about the robot and is given creative freedom to draw, paint, illustrate, or whatever a scene or variety of scenes from the vss. It’s been REALLY fun so far, seeing what people come up with. So obviously, each robot will look different and they could be all kinds of different mediums, but hey, that’s part of what makes it fun!
Stay tuned, readers! Should be a blast. First story is coming on Monday.
-Den
Posted in flash fiction, The Melancholy Robot
Tagged art, artists, beauty, collaboration, creating, dennis finocchiaro, drawing, entertainment, fiction, flash fiction, friends, funny, humor, kitsch, life, painting, people, robot, sad robot, sculpting, The Melancholy Robot
A Flash of Inspiration 