The Story Of The Boy, The Android And The Holograms Poem by Denis Martindale

A boy had lived alone for almost all his life. He had never been hugged or kissed. He stayed in the home he was born in. An android companion was so damaged it could not speak. It provided food from the stores and the boy ate whatever he could get. The boy had never learned to speak correctly and had no vocabulary skills at all. Words were seen upon the walls but he could not understand them or what their meanings were.

One day, the android discovered an extra room and forced open its entrance. The room lights switched on and flickered wildly at first. The automatic hologram display appeared and the android stared in wonder. The boy was led by the hand to watch the hologram. The boy saw the first representation of a human being. Time passed and the male hologram character revealed the family he had and how they communicated with each other. The boy absorbed the information until the time he realised where boys and girls came from. He learned that they grow up and change into adults.

Decades passed by and the android was still operating on full power. The boy was now a man. He had become the loneliest man in the world. The last man on the planet Earth. He would eventually become the last man to die on the planet Earth. He could speak the same language as the hologram did but there was no other human being to talk to. Not one female had survived the Omega War. In time, he ventured out of the home and explored near and far. Beyond the city streets, even along to the lake, the place that changed his life…


Denis Martindale, for the 15th of January 2024.