HypoBot 5000 sat on his cold, hard hospital bed, looking out the window at the rain streaming down onto the ambulances screaming by, sirens wailing, as if to mourn his dreadful condition. It was late April, and the clinic had a different smell to it, the smell, it seemed to him, of death and rebirth. At least, as far as HypoBot's smell receptors could percieve it, that was the smell. He wondered how he could have gotten here. Why all this had to happen to him now, when there was still so much left to do.

"Does not compute," HypoBot said aloud, to no one in particular. "Just...does not compute."

Nearly four months had passed since HypoBot had checked himself in at St. Mary's. It was the 117th day of his stay in the science fiction and fantasy characters ward, the area headed up by the good Nurse Shipley and her team of helpful engineers and wizards, all of whom did their best to ratchet up a smile or conjure up some hope in these bleak days. HypoBot had made some dear friends during his stay: Frankie the Unicorn, who had long been afflicted with a severe case of gout; Martian warlord Zarnok the Conqueror, whose lung cancer had come from years of inhaling raygun fumes; Paisley O'Shamrock, a diabetic leprechaun on his last leg; unfortunate mutant Michael Faltworth, also known as "Neck" because he was born with no head; and aspiring magic user Wicksworth the Magnificient, who, while practicing a spell one afternoon, had accidentally turned himself into a sentient case of herpes.

HypoBot pondered how many thoughts he would be able to process before the last 0 or 1 ran through his complex circuitry.

It is good that I have known these people, he thought, even though I have only stored their vital, identifying information into my memory banks and have purged much of my conversational and relationship-based data to make room for this new self-pity software. Oh, how I shall miss them. And how I shall also be missed!

"Error!" he cried. "Error!"

Serving lunch in another section of the ward, Nurse Shipley, hearing HypoBot's cries, kindly decided to bring him his meal and attend to his woes. She arrived by his bedside with a plate of Salisbury steak, with some mashed potatoes on the side and some Jell-O for dessert. Nurse Shipley knew that Jell-O was HypoBot's favorite and was hoping that an extra big helping would cheer him up.

At the sight of his lunch, HypoBot solemnly opened his frontal cavity, clasped the plate with one of his clamps and poured in the sustinence, all of which near-instantly exited through is exhaust spout and clanged into the bedpan underneath him. Even the Jell-O, it appeared, was no help.

"Now don't go mopin' around like that!" said the nurse. "I've heard from a pretty knowldgeable source that Dr. Conway might just be comin' to see you this afternoon with some big news!"

HypoBot sat up in his bed, filled with hope and most likely smiling brightly if he had had the facial features to do so instead of a molded series of titanium plates onto which was grafted a lighted power indicator that constantly glowed red.

"Error?" he asked, hopefully.

"No, 'tis surely true," said the nurse as she bounded off to serve another patient. "So buck up a hint, eh?"

For the remainder of the afternoon, HypoBot 5000 sat perched in his bed, almost jumping out of his skin (if he had any) in anticipation of the doctor's news. Could it be an all-clear? A new miracle cure? Or even just another robot in the ward with whom he could truly share his plight? The realm of possibilities was endless, he thought. Too many to count, even. And he could perform nearly 4500 calculations a second, during his prime. This gave HypoBot newfound hope.

After a seeming eternity, Dr. Conway did, in fact, push back the curtain and finally stepped carefully into HypoBot's area of the ward, clipboard in hand, just as good Nurse Shipley had promised. Too excited to contain himself, HypoBot held out his clamps and asked the doctor what news he had brought.

"Please input data!" he exclaimed. "Please input data!"

Dr. Conway sat on the side of HypoBot's bed and casually tried to calm him down, assuredly taking both of the robot's clamps in his smooth human doctor-hands. He grinned slightly at his patient, who had won his heart as soon as he had been shipped into the building and re-assembled on this very bed.

"I have some good news," said the doctor. "After some extensive testing, we've discovered that robots don't have intestinal tracts and can't get cholera."

"Processing..." said HypoBot. "Error?"

"No, I mean it," said the doctor. "As a robot, you just can't have it."

HypoBot released an exaust plume of relief that caused Dr. Conway to cough for several minutes.

"But," the doctor said once he recovered, "I do have some other news. It appears that you do have another disorder that we may have to look into."

"Input data," said HypoBot.

"Well," said Dr. Conway, looking down at his chart, "I'm not sure how this is possible, but it seems as though you might have been experiencing some mild -- but increasingly more serious -- dementia."

"Processing," said HypoBot, biting his lower lip, if he had one. "Does...does not compute."

"Essentially," said the doctor, "you're losing your mind."

HypoBot engaged his doubt capacitor. Once that was done, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. If he remembered anything about him other than his name and his sickness, he thought, he would have wondered what Frankie had to say about this.