The oldest models fail first. They were built before the Humans left, and they were not made to endure the rising toxicity levels on the planet's surface. One by one they fall still. Under the acidic rain they rust and pit and their parts are unsalvageable.

The last line of models produced, the last hope for the Humans, fail next. They were made for speed, in order to hasten the clean-up. They do everything fast – including fall apart.

One by one the shelves in the truck grow empty.

He finds the carousel horse first. The color catches his attention, because there is no more color in this world. The horse's frozen position intrigues him. What was its purpose? Its design? Why did it fall still and silent? And when?

There is no logical reason to follow a route that takes him past it every day, but still he does. Just to look at it.

The sandstorms grow fiercer. Those models that aren't fast enough or close enough to shelter when the storms hit are tossed about and scoured down to their base parts.

He rolls past the dead without looking. He didn't care about them when they were functional. They matter even less now.

There comes a day when no other models roll up the ramp. The truck is dark and silent.

Still, he waits until the last possible moment to close the doors.

Just in case.

The carousel horse is heavy, and hard to drag through the wasteland. He spends far too long arranging it in the front of the truck until it is positioned just right. The carousel horse serves no purpose, it has no logical reason for being, but something about it satisfies him.

He unearths the cooler not long afterward, and discovers it is well-suited to hold the objects he finds. Most of them are strange and unique, puzzles that will never be solved, without meaning and without name. And he has no labels for them, either. He is capable of vocalization but except for his own name, which he proudly warbles from time to time just to hear the sound echo through the otherwise-silent world, he has no words.

He collects his artifacts anyway, grouping them first according to color, then size, then form or function, then finally just putting them carefully on the shelves in no real logical manner at all.

The shelving unit swings back and forth when spun too hard. Sometimes at night before he shuts down, he sets it to rocking. Like so many of the objects that now fill the truck, the swaying motion fits no category and defies definition – but he likes it anyway.

He discovers the tape by accident, while rolling over a trailing loop half-buried in the dust.

It takes some time to unlock the images it holds. The first time he succeeds, he is amazed by what he sees. Humans! They have been gone so long – two-hundred and nineteen thousand, five-hundred forty-two days – but now they are suddenly on Earth again, moving and laughing and talking as though they never left. The words go by too fast for him to learn, but the music is easier to mimic. After he records it, he is able to take it with him everywhere, and the days don't seem so empty anymore.

He practices with sounds, trying out which ones feel right. He is intimidated by new things, loud things, things that do not follow the strict pattern of the days or the logic routines that are still in solid working order. Sound gives him a mode of expression that would not otherwise be possible. Like the Humans on the video, sometimes words are not necessary. Sometimes, sound alone is enough.

Old edifices fall. New ones rise to take their place.

He goes on, working to clean the planet for the Humans who are waiting for him to finish. Waiting so they can return to the world they had to leave behind.

One day his job will be done.

END