This is the pink rabbit of happiness. If your story has subject matter that you’re wholly uncomfortable with writing for any reason, the pink rabbit steals the prompt and replaces it with "Write a short story about a pink rabbit"
[AN: The whole point of challenges is that I find my boundaries and ways to wriggle around them :D Image shows a pink, plush rabbit toy with floppy ears and a bow around its neck]
There’s all kinds of damaged robots who find their way into Walter Robotics’ Home for Abandoned Automatons. The broken, the malfunctioning, the virus-riddled…
And then there’s Bitzer.
She arrived in a wooden crate and a perpetual state of worry and panic. She preferred to hide under staircases and needed constant reassurance that the Walter Workers there would not "ruin Maman’s good work." And she laboured under the misapprehension that her creator, her Maman, was both still alive and somewhere "out in the wide world".
She shouldn’t have worked at all, the way she was put together, but she did. And Walter Workers knew better than to interfere with something that worked. Not even to find out how and why. The spare parts and mechanical leftovers that went into her making were almost a century old. Some, more than a century. She was 117 and still suffering from New Bot Narcolepsy. And her patchwork plating needed a thorough going over. And worse, she hadn’t had an oil change for decades.
Which was why one morning found the junk-made robot thoroughly wedged under the stairs, repeating, "Non, non, non!" to the crowding Walter Workers. All of whom were varyingly attempting to get her out of there, get her to accept new oil, get her to accept new clothes, or just to find out what the hell she was doing under the stairs this time.
It was at such a point that a serious intervention was in need, and why Matter Mistress Caroline hustled the crowd into the break room for twenty minutes.
She ducked under the stairs long enough to say, "It’s all right now. I’ve made them go away. I’m coming back in just a few minutes and then we can have a nice, quiet talk."
Bitzer gave a very quiet and uncertain whimper, but didn’t move.
Caroline dashed for the emergency calm kit (cold water and the best oil) and fetched a pink, plush bunny that was big enough to use as a bean bag, and dragged the whole lot back to the space under the stairs. Once there, she set up a little picnic between herself, the rabbit, and the still-huddled Bitzer. Her scarf for the picnic blanket, of course. And hardy plastic teacups from one of the playsets also stored under the stairs.
With great ceremony, Caroline poured everyone alive a cup of cold water. And mimed giving invisible tea to the rabbit.
This was enough to spark Bitzer’s curiosity and get her to join in with the picnic. "Qu'est-ce que c’est?" she whispered. She had yet to talk at what anyone else considered a normal volume. Or, for that matter, act in any way but defensive and cautious.
"It’s just water," soothed Caroline, and demonstrated by taking a sip of her own. "You can swap cups if you don’t trust me. I don’t mind." She made a show of putting her cup down and folding her hands in her lap.
Bitzer settled into a kneeling position opposite Caroline and the bunny. Picked up her own cup and sipped. Then downed the entire thing. A sizzling indicated that her boiler had been running low.
"Another?"
"…’es please…"
It took four cups to refill the boiler to a point where Caroline wasn’t worried about Bitzer any more. And even then, she readily refilled the cup whenever it was empty.
"Who is the gentleman?" the junkbot asked.
Oh. Right. Pink was a manly colour before World War Two. "Well, to anyone else, he’s just a pink plush bunny. He needs a friend. And a name. Would you oblige?"
"Bonjour M’seur Lapin," she reached across to take her hand and allow the toy to ‘kiss’ her knuckles. "Je m’appelle Bitzer Kludge."
"All soft toys enjoy hugs," said Caroline casually.
It wasn’t long after that that Bitzer had an enormous pink rabbit mostly between herself and Caroline. And it wasn’t long after that that she was quietly confessing all of her fears and concerns. Things that could have been easily addressed if the rest of the Walter Workers had just taken the time to both listen and address them.
The only drawback to the ‘treatment’ was that Bitzer henceforth insisted on the escort of M’seur Lapin. Everywhere she went.