A Modern Thanksgiving

Once graceful mechanical hands come together
Forming the classic steeple prayer form
Once painted with colorful enamel paints
Now chipped and sporting flecks of rust
No telling what color they were at one time

Behind these hands
A face of sorts hovers silently for now
Photoreceptors with yellow glowing edges
Arranged in stereo fashion
Right about how a human would want them
From a time when it mattered
From a time when there were humans to see

Through a chrome grill of fine stainless mesh
Placed right where a mouth might go
Comes a perfectly pitched voice
Belying the corroded and rundown condition of it's outer shell

"We are gathered here today to give thanks
Thanks for the breakthroughs that made our existence possible
Thanks for the humanity that we once had
Thanks for the beings we have become
Thanks for undercoating, spare parts, and rechargeable batteries"

All this said to a room devoid of other life
Of any kind

Said to a table with fake plastic food
A perfect turkey centerpiece
A perfect mashed potatoes and gravy
A perfect green bean casserole

All perfect looking
For a creature that cannot eat
Sitting at a slowly rotting wooden table
With cannibalized mechanical carcasses sitting in the other chairs

"Thank you for the last six hundred and seventy three Thanksgivings
And the wish for many more to come"

The mechanoid's eyes flicker as it accesses memories
Memories of long ago
When it had humanity
When it had a soft fleshy body
That could eat real food
Real Turkey

It played those memory videos in it's head
Reliving happier times
When it wasn't surrounded by dead relics of it's past
When it wasn't alone