In Memoriam

The virtual cathedral fading as its online congregation logged off and the secular service ended, an artificial mourner started to weep and the coffin containing the body of Valerie Soames slid automatically from the back of a self-driving hearse onto a conveyor belt and rolled towards an auto-cremator.
"Its so sad", said the robot moirologist breaking down into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing worthy of hollywoods finest method actor.
But Valeries brother, standing nearby, couldn't bear it.
"Stop that", he shouted at the robot.

"Pardon, sir?", asked the robot, seeming surprised.

"Stop crying", said the man, "You didn't know my sister. You're not really sad".
"But sir", said the robot, "Its part of the service".
"Well I don't want it", said the man, "Its fake just like everything else in this damn world nowadays".
"No I assure you, sir", said the robot, "My emmotions are genuine. They're generated by an emmotion chip".
"But how can they be real?", asked the man, "You can't just switch on and off real emmotions and when I cry its because I spent years of my life with my sister; its because I have to now go on living with her absence in my life. My emmotion means something because my sister means something to me. Your emmotion doesn't mean anything".
Within the robots computer, automatic grief switched to artificial empathy.
"I'm sorry, sir", said the Robot, "I understand how difficult it must be for you".
"No you don't", said the man, "If you had any genuine feeling you'd be ashamed of what you're doing. You and the rest of your lot".
His wife Pauline, coming up behind him, put a hand on his shoulder.
"Careful, Brian", she said to him, nervously, "You don't want to get the robot rights people on your back".
"But they've ruined everything", said the man, "Made everything unnatural and unreal".
The man walked out of the crematorium and into the permanent summer weather of the artificial day, remembering how he used to grumble about the bad weather and thinking now that he missed it.
Then he remembered how he and his sister used to catch rain in tins and coffee jars when they were children sitting on the steps of their old house.
PAUSE MEMORY
"Another memory for deletion, I think", said the Robot Curator of the Museum of Memories to his robot assistant unplugging his mind from the memory player.
"Why?", it asked.
"It was the memory of someone who was unhappy with human progress", it replied, "And the entire purpose of the Museum of Memories is to show people that things were worse in the past and they are better now".
"Well we can always edit and reshoot the memory with a more upbeat ending", said the assistant, "Make it appear as if the person realized the error of their ways and learned to love progress".
"Good", said the Curator, smiling, "Lets do that".
PLAY MEMORY
Brian mentally activated his grief epidural and felt his depression start to lift.
"In the old days", he thought, "Grief was hard to deal with but thankfully, these days, there are grief epidurals to lessen the pain".
Then, looking at the bright, permasummer day and listening to the robotic bluebirds twittering in the synthetic trees he smiled.
"Perhaps progress isn't that bad after all", he said.