Scattered All Over the Earth

by Yōko Tawada

“What kind of work are you doing in Odense?” “storyteller at märchen center. stories from long ago to children tell.” “But you’re very young. We’d expect someone much older to be telling folktales.” “everything from yesterday disappears, then yesterday into long ago transforms.”

I refused as politely as I could. If people saw me on TV, someone might recognize me when they saw me later, walking around town and use that as an excuse to talk to me even though they had nothing to say.

“Why don’t you build robots like this?” I asked. “Like what?” “Robots that look like real people.” “Robots should look like robots,” he said. “Robots you can’t tell from human beings are old-fashioned, and dangerous besides. I don’t want innocent children to believe everything a robot says.” “What do you mean?” “The things robots say aren’t really words. They’re mathematical formulas.”