After Osman's exaggerated shout, Surjo stared at him blankly. His curious eyes seemed to scream, 'I really don't know, please explain it to me.' A deep hunger to learn the unknown was clear on his face.
Osman could read his expression. He sank into deep thought. How could he make a complex concept like the Internet simple for a child growing up in these ruins?
"Tell me quickly! Why are you quiet?" Surjo was losing patience.
An idea flashed in Osman's mechanical brain. "Yes, I've got it! The Internet is... an invisible medium."
"?" Surjo understood nothing.
"I mean, it is a way for you to talk and connect with anyone far away—no matter where they are in the world."
Surjo scratched his head, trying to understand. Then he said indifferently, "Talk to someone far away? But who? I don't have anyone far away. Who would I talk to? If there's no one there, then this Internet is useless!"
Osman looked shocked. In a slightly hurt tone, he cried out, "Don't you dare say you have no one! Am I not here? Your wisest friend!" If Osman were a human instead of a robot, his chest would surely have puffed out with pride at that moment.
Hearing this, Surjo tried his best to hide his smile. But in the end, he couldn't; he burst into a giggle. "Ha ha ha... but you are just an old oil tin—I mean, a tin box!"
Osman pretended to be even angrier and said in a mechanical voice, "I may be a broken tin box made of iron, but I am much smarter than you, aren't I!" His voice now sounded teasing, as if he were intentionally trying to annoy Surjo.
Surjo's cheeks puffed up like balloons in anger. "No, no, no... not at all!"
"It's true!" Osman insisted, breaking into loud laughter.
Seeing Osman's strange laugh, Surjo couldn't stay serious either; he joined in. Their unchecked laughter shattered the damp silence of the narrow alley like glass. For that brief moment, the horrors of the gray world and the darkness of nuclear ash seemed washed away by the spark of their lives.
When the laughter faded, Osman suddenly became serious.
"Listen Surjo, this is important. You don't just use the Internet to talk to people far away. It is actually a massive storehouse of knowledge from the past—a goldmine of achievements and information from the civilization that was destroyed. You could call it the final gift left behind for you by that lost world." He lowered his head slightly and added, "By those who no longer exist."
Osman stared fixedly at Surjo. But those heavy words flew right over the boy's head. Knowledge, the past, or civilization's gift—these weighty terms were just meaningless noise to Surjo. His brief curiosity turned into a vague annoyance and confusion; what Osman was saying seemed completely pointless to him.
Osman quickly realized how vast the gap was between his data-driven mechanical world and Surjo's simple reality.
So, instead of lecturing him with heavy facts, he began to tell fun stories about this world of ruins. They became so lost in the magic of the stories that no one noticed the time. They didn't even realize when the dim light of the alley died out and the pitch-black darkness of late night arrived.
Suddenly, Osman's mechanical eyes glowed like a warning signal.
"Surjo, it's very late. No more for today. You should go home now."
Surjo pouted and said sulkily, "Let me stay a bit longer, Osman! No one is waiting for me at home anyway. Even if I go there, I'll just be alone..."
Osman placed his heavy, cold right hand on Surjo's head with great tenderness. Even in the mechanical touch of that worn-out, lowly robot, there was a strange human warmth.
"I am telling you again, never call yourself alone, Surjo. I am here with you."
Surjo gently moved the hand from his head. "Okay, I'm going now, but promise me—you'll tell many more fun stories tomorrow."
Osman slowly extended the pinky finger of his large right hand. The steel finger was faded and ice-cold.
"Put your pinky finger on mine," Osman said, his mechanical voice now filled with an otherworldly softness.
Surjo did exactly what Osman said. His soft, small finger touched Osman's cold metal frame. As their fingers locked, Osman gripped Surjo's pinky gently but firmly.
"Pinky promise," Osman whispered. "Before this great war started, when the world was livable and civilization existed—little children used to make a 'pinky promise' like this to keep their word."
Hearing this, Surjo's eyes sparkled with excitement. A new light played across his sad face.
His curiosity made him ask, "What happens if you break this pinky promise?!"
A small smile appeared on Osman's face. "What else... I'll have to be pecked by crows."
"Oh, really! Then 'pinky promise'! I will never forget this! And you won't break it either." Surjo gave a wide, toothy, and slightly awkward grin.
...
Surjo said goodbye and had walked quite a distance away. When he turned back once to wave, Osman slowly raised his heavy, mechanical right hand in return. Sitting amidst the piles of trash, the broken robot looked like a lonely, silent monument.
***
In the grip of the bone-chilling winter, the freezing wind pierced the body like a sword. The ruined buildings on either side stood like skeletons. Peeking through the gaps of their dark windows, a few dilapidated shops could be seen struggling to survive in the cracks of the worn walls.
Through the pitch-black darkness of the night, the faint yellow light of lanterns flickered occasionally—like a dying flame of temporary hope. Those who had a bit of thick cloth or warm clothes wrapped themselves up and walked quickly toward their destination. And the truly unfortunate—those who had neither enough food nor clothing—lay huddled in street corners like dead skeletons, shivering from cold and hunger. In this broken environment, every human face showed only frozen despair and a deep, painful bitterness.
But that terrifying emptiness did not affect Surjo's mind at all. His two small feet moved rhythmically over the broken stones of the road. He was humming a song to himself, dancing along with a light step—as if he were ignoring all the world's sorrow to hold onto his childhood tightly. No worries touched him. In this sad, gray world, Surjo's smiling face was like a lamp of unstoppable hope, making the surrounding ruins seem less bleak.
Suddenly, Surjo's humming stopped. From behind a ruined wall, he saw the scene:
Inside a narrow alley, a few boys in ragged clothes had surrounded a girl. The girl's face was pale with terror, and fear was clear in her eyes—she stood as still as a stone. There was no life in the boys' laughter; it was only a sharp, cruel joy, like that of hunting animals.
In an instant, Surjo's childhood joy turned into intense rage. He had to save the girl, no matter what! Without thinking of the consequences, he charged at them with a shout. He leaped with the speed of lightning and landed a hard kick on the boy closest to the group. Losing his balance from the sudden attack, the boy crashed to the ground.
Surjo quickly moved in front of the terrified girl, standing as a shield. Now he had a chance to look closely at the bullies—their rough faces and the primitive, hungry look in their eyes.
Courage was still boiling in his heart, but now he started to count the opponents with a cool head. "One, two, three..." He folded his small fingers to keep track. When he finished counting, his heart seemed to stop for a moment. There were seven of them!
"...Seven!"
Seeing the number, a strange flash of happiness crossed Surjo's face instead of fear; his eyes danced with excitement.
"Hey! This number can be counted on just my fingers! It's not as big as twenty-five!"
The boy who had fallen from Surjo's kick stood up, huffing with rage. He and the other six—each of them two or three years older than Surjo—began to move toward him with sharp, fierce glares.
Behind Surjo, the girl stared at him in amazement. Only one question was in her terrified eyes:
'Where did this boy come from at such a time?' Through the clouds of fear, there was now a look of disbelief.
Just then, Surjo let out a loud roar at the bullies, "I am Surjo, the Hero! You naughty boys won't escape my hands. Now you will beg for your lives, just watch! Ha ha ha..."
Surjo spread his small arms unnecessarily wide, as if he were trying to grab a giant monster. His right hand was balled into a fist, but it was so far from any target that it looked like he was threatening the air. His shaky, inexperienced stance and the strange smile on his face despite his fear made the whole posture look completely hilarious.
And as a bonus, his loud laughter was pure, but in this crisis, it sounded exactly like the rambling of a madman.