To Be Read in a Thick Japanese Accent

I tried to please my wife. But I could not turn straw into gold. I brought water every day from the stream. I heated it at the fire and filled her tub, and she bathed. But the water would grow cold and she was displeased.

One day she made a robot husband with fingers of aluminum and ruby eyes that saw everything at once. This robot did not drive me from the house but I was so ashamed that I betook myself to the barn and dwelt there weeping several days, lamenting my estate. It was clear that I was not so good a husband as the robot. He brought water that did not grow cold. He did not need her to be warm or vulnerable. He could lift her and carry her so that her feet were not soiled until quickly she forgot that our house was a farm house surrounded by dirt.

I studied the robot and learned how to be a robot husband. Hundreds of times I heated the water not with fire but with electricity and with the sun so that it did not grow cold. I watched the robot husband run round and round the house so that my wife could be alone but not feel afraid and I learned to walk round and round the house without growing tired. Finally I cut out my heart and installed a tiny cabinet there where I placed crackers salted only on one side and also batteries with the rays of the sun. I learned to be a robot husband, and when I came back from the barn I had so much power. I explained to the robot that I had learned all that he did to be a good robot husband. He laughed. But I showed him how I made hot water that would not grow cold and how I could walk around the house and many other things. Still he laughed.

But I showed him that I could also be a human husband. I could listen and although nothing seemed to happen my listening would make my wife grow stronger. I did not know what to make for dinner but if I looked through the cupboards an idea came to me that might have nothing to do with what was in the cupboards but seemed to have arrived on its own. The robot grew angry. He took the cupboard apart and searched the kitchen for the idea of food but he found only particle board and laminate. And then I made this dinner for the robot and he said that he understood.

The robot flew up into the sky, farther and farther until he was only a shrinking dot hanging still among the drifting clouds. I went back inside and in the kitchen I saw my wife admiring a puzzle that had been put together by her robot husband. It was a puzzle that was all one color, and it was perfectly assembled.