The Touch Railroad

by Tanisha Medina

The downtown area was quiet, a quiet that hummed like a refrigerator, except for the occasional warning whistle from the nearby train station. Humanoid robots walked alongside humans, their tin-can skin and limbs squeaking like doors slowly closing in unison, their voices monotone yet persuasive. Everywhere you went, you could feel them spying. And they filled most American households.

Ever since the Ban, it was illegal for humans to touch one another without prior authorization. Like US visas, they were rarely approved. Illness prevention, they called it. It was a safety measure put in place to prevent human extinction, the Humanoid government told us. Therapy, companionship, and even childcare had been handed over to humanoid robot units that never wavered, aged, nor carried any risks. Hell, that didn’t even sleep.

Officially, human touch had become much like dinosaurs: ancient, contaminated, dangerous. Unofficially, it had become contraband.

That’s where I came in with my neatly braided and twisted hair, styled with a vibrant orange and brown scarf wrapped around it, along with large gold hoop earrings.

My therapy office front looked like a half-priced bookstore,