Robot Cleopatra

            On Friday morning I went into the bedroom to get my guitar and there was a long, skinny bedbug three quarters of the way up the frame of the old exit door at the head of my bed. I tried to pick it off and it fell, but I didn’t have time to look for it. 

            I worked out the chords for the first four verses of “L'avant-guerre, c'est maintenant” (The Pre-War is Happening) by Serge Gainsbourg. All the instrumental breaks between the verses are the same and there’s only one verse left. I should have it finished on Saturday. 

            When I went back into the bedroom an hour later, I pulled back the pillow and the bedbug that had fallen was still lying there. It was alive and looked healthy and after I crushed it its back end was still wriggling until I finished it off. I assume it had been affected by the spores that pest control sprayed in the bedroom, but the effect is different from the dust. The dust dries them out and they turn black inside while these ones look alive but can’t seem to move as well. 

            Some of the birds must have laid their eggs because they have begun attacking the squirrels as they cross the powerlines. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Apala finally got back to me at around 11:00 and said she was fine with meeting in person. Since there was some uncertainty as to what would be open today, we decided on Monday. She said we’ll meet at 14:00 at the Robarts Cafeteria. That’s still on campus and so I’ll have to wear a mask, but at least it’s not Zoom. 

            I tried to work on my essay but I felt tired and so I took an early siesta from noon to 13:30. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. I made a quick chili with a can of black-eyed peas, some salsa, and some roasted garlic pasta sauce and ate half a bowl with kettle chips. 

            I took an early bike ride at 15:20. It was warm enough on the way downtown but while riding back along Queen there was a strong wind that was blowing a cold misty rain that felt like I was being continuously sprayed in the face by an aerosol can. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos at 16:45. 

            I wanted to work on my essay but didn’t feel I had the mental energy and so I decided to take a one-hour siesta at 17:30. I couldn’t sleep but decided to give it half an hour. While I was lying there, I ran through “Le régiment des mal aimés” (The Regiment of Broken Hearts” by Boris Vian in my head and discovered that I’d actually memorized all the verses. I’d struggled with the fourth verse in the morning but couldn’t quite nail it down. All that’s left now is one final chorus. 

            I got up at 18:00 and even though I hadn’t slept I felt recharged. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:20. 

            I worked for about an hour on my essay but I was still tired and so I kept dozing off. 

            I had a potato, lima beans, spinach, and scallion with margarine for dinner while watching an episode of Astro Boy. 

            This story begins with Astro Boy and Mr. Pompus riding a train when a man wearing a keffiyeh headdress enters their cabin. He gives Pompus a large, shining, heart-shaped jewel and asks him to keep it safe from the secret society. Then he jumps off the moving train. He is grabbed by a giant robot beetle and taken to the secret society members who search his body for the heart. They conclude that he must have given it to someone on the train and they go to find it. 

            Meanwhile, Pompus tells Astro Boy to fly back and look for the man that gave him the heart. As soon as he leaves, three gunmen come to get the heart from Pompus. They tell him the heart is part of a necklace that belonged to Cleopatra. Pompus kicks the gun from one of their hands and escapes to the roof of the train. A giant robot beetle swoops down and Pompus jumps as the train is crossing a very high bridge. Astro Boy saves him and they take the heart to Dr. Elefun and the police chief. 

            Elefun learns that the heart is supposed to have a strange power. Suddenly several window washers who had been on the ledge enter the chief’s office with guns. They subdue Astro Boy’s friends with sleeping gas and disguise themselves as Elefun, Pompus, and the chief to escape with the jewel in a getaway car. The chief calls Astro Boy who pursues and stops the car. A giant robot beetle attacks him and he destroys it but then another beetle drops a bomb, One of the secret society members is injured and decides to tell Astro Boy everything. 

            In Egypt, there is a mad scientist named Rasburton who created an almost perfect robot that looks identical to the original Cleopatra. She has become the symbolic queen of the Crimson Brotherhood. The wounded man gives Astro Boy the heart and says for him to keep it safe from Rasburton and Cleopatra who will use it to rule the world. Astro Boy puts the heart inside his own chest plate.

            Meanwhile, in Egypt, the robot Cleopatra addresses a crowd of thousands of members of the Crimson Brotherhood. 

            Most of them cheer her but some express doubt that she is really their lost queen. She blasts some of them with her scepter and then leaves the ceremony. 

            Later Rasburton confronts her about having left. She says she felt bad about hurting people. Rasburton says she must do whatever he says. He fixes her so she will be brutal and obey his orders. They need the heart to complete their plans to conquer the world with their robot army, missiles, and robot whales that tunnel underground. They learn that Astro Boy has the heart and so they prepare her giant stone robots. She and Rasburton go inside of one of the robots and then all four robots fly to get the heart. 

            The next day Astro Girl is picking flowers when two members of the Crimson Brotherhood try to coax her into their car. She refuses and so they grab her and put her in the car. She is stronger than them but allows them to take her because she thinks it’s interesting. At their hideout, she decides to leave and they try to stop her but she now shows her great strength. But after she smashes through the wall she is grabbed by one of the giant stone robots. Now she needs help and calls for Astro Boy. Astro Boy arrives and Rasburton challenges him that if he defeats the robots he gets his sister back but if not Rasburton gets the heart. Astro Boy agrees and defeats the first three robots but the one piloted by Rasburton is more powerful and pulls him in with a magnetic field. But then Astro Boy uses his rocket boots to destroy the robot’s eyes and it staggers away blind with Cleopatra and Rasburton inside until it falls off a cliff into the ocean and sinks to the bottom. This is a two-part story. I found one bedbug on my bed as I was making it. It had no blood inside when I killed it.