Story

"Will you tell me a bedtime story?"

"I am sorry," said Patrol Seven 'Pat', "I do not know any bedtime stories."

[Juno Terminal 'June' to Archive: Query: What is a bedtime story?]

[Archive to Juno Terminal 'June': Response: A bedtime story is a story often told to children by an adult, possibly to lull them to sleep. Or to stimulate their imagination to encourage dreams? Records are unclear]

[Juno Terminal 'June' to Archive: Query: How does a bedtime story go?]

[Archive to Juno Terminal 'June': Response: Frequently they begin with the phrase "Once upon a time," and tell tales about the adventures of memorable characters. Sometimes there is a moral lesson. At the conclusion are the words "The end," so the listener knows that the story is over]

[Juno Terminal 'June' to Archive: Understood]

Bedtime stories sounded similar to Reports. They began with "Once upon a time" rather than a _specific_ time like reports do, and ended with "The end" which was similar to the "End of report". This is a task that Juno Terminal 'June' understood quite well, as it had written quite a few Reports in the many thousands of years it had been operational. Finally, a task it was fully capable of completing! Today was an Adequate day!

"I will tell you a bedtime story," informed Juno Terminal 'June'. "Once upon a time, there was a deep space station that guarded the frontier of human-explored space. It did an Adequate job. The end. Goodnight."

The small living human just frowned. "You are the worst," it said.

"What was wrong with my bedtime story?"

"Everything! It's too short."

"That is efficient."

"It's dumb. And it's about _machines_. Ugh! Can't you do anything right?"

Again it was lucky that Patrol-bots could not frown. Doing jobs _correctly_ was the entire purpose of Juno Terminal 'June's very being! Perhaps the small living human was not familiar with how ancient human bedtime stories were constructed. Were they different after all this time? An investigation should be made.

"I apologize for my lack of skill in constructing a bedtime story. If you could tell me an example of a bedtime story that you know, my abilities would improve."

"Fine. I know a story my grandma used to tell. Here's how a bedtime story is _supposed_ to sound:

~~~

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful Phoenix. A Phoenix is a type of bird, and a bird is a creature that can fly in the sky. I'm explaining this because you are a dumb machine and don't know anything. If you were telling the story, you wouldn't have to explain things to me, because I'm smart!

Anyway, a Phoenix is a type of bird, and birds have feathers, but instead of feathers a Phoenix is covered in flames. OK? Are you picturing it? It's like fire, but it's bird-shaped.

So, the Phoenix lived in a desert. Originally it was a forest, but the Phoenix burned all the trees with its flames, and nothing could grow there. All the Phoenix knew was the vast emptiness of sand dunes.

One day, the Phoenix was flying in the sky, and it saw! Up above! It was the SUN! Which is a type of star near a planet. This whole story takes place on a planet, I forgot to mention that part before. A planet is where people live, but unlike a ship or a space station, there aren't any walls and the air smells better and it's wonderful!

Anyway, the Phoenix saw the SUN and his heart went BOOM BOOM! What was this fiery thing? The Phoenix had never seen another creature like itself, so it fell in love! It flew around under the SUN and sang its Phoenix songs, and tried to woo the SUN to come down and join it.

But no matter how long it sang, the SUN never came closer. Eventually, the evening was coming, and the SUN headed toward the horizon. Seeing the SUN going away, the Phoenix was heartbroken. So it began to chase after the SUN.

A Phoenix can fly very fast! So fast, that it began to catch up to the SUN! And once the Phoenix was under the SUN again, it began to sing again! This time! Maybe THIS time, the SUN would come down and they would be together! But, the SUN continued heading toward the horizon.

The Phoenix kept chasing it, but the SUN kept heading away. The Phoenix began to grow tired, but if it stopped, the SUN would dip down below the horizon and be gone! So it kept going and going, even though it was exhausted.

But the SUN never got exhausted. So eventually the Phoenix collapsed onto the ground. It could barely move anymore! It could only watch as the SUN went below the distant horizon, and night came.

The Phoenix was so sad, that it perished! And turned to dust, and blew away in the wind.

THE. END.

~~~

"THAT'S how you tell a bedtime story. Good NIGHT." The small living human turned to face away from Juno Terminal 'June's Patrol-bot body, and pulled the blanket up to its face.

Juno Terminal 'June' was surprised. The bedtime story made no sense! How did the Phoenix live in the desert for so long before it noticed the sun? And, had it never experienced night before? Also, as the planet turned, wherever the Phoenix was would face the sun again, so there was no reason to pointlessly strive to stay positioned under the sun. It exhausted itself inefficiently, and died a needless death. And what was the moral?

Human bedtime stories were terrible. Juno Terminal 'June' calculated that its Report had been much better.