Beauty is Unnecessary

A science-fiction/symbolic scene about the treatment of the female gender.

"You have seven minutes until lights out," Nora's mouth box produced evenly, her fleshless metal lips programmed to move at the right time, but not able to make the small, gentle "o" in "you" or miniscule grin of "ten". Her body frame twinkled from the hall light.

"Nora," Matthew said quickly, sitting up. "Today at school, I was talking to my friend Jonathan, and he said that there used to be real girls. With skin and bones and everything, like us. Is that true?"

Nora made a ticking sound from within as she aquired the words. Her head quirked slightly.

"Yes. Once there were live females."

"What happened to them?"

Nora made the harsh, scraping, electronic sound of a computer printer. She was an earlier model and not up to the latest designs' beauty or quiet information processor, but Matthew's dad could afford no better at the moment.

"They became unnecessary."

"Why? Jonathan said they were really pretty. Prettier than the version tens, even."

"Beauty is unnecessary. Of.ten...," Nora's voice dropped and rose. Matthew frowned.

"Repeat," Matthew said.

"Beauty is unnecessary. Often." She stopped again, the rest of the answer scrambled in the sounds of her overworked body.

"REPEAT," Matthew said loudly.

"Beauty is unnecessary. Often dest." Nora's arm jumped, and Matthew held his hand against her head. She was overheated again. It was happening earlier and earlier every day. He had to convince dad to buy a new model. The boys at school were starting to make fun of him when Nora came to pick him up, her shapeless body and metal hair standing next to the version nines and version tens, with small waists, large breasts, long blonde hair, and near-real skin.

"Go to the living room, Nora," Matthew instructed slowly and loudly.

Nora did, ambling to a creaking and snapping rhythm.