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It was raining again—loud, thunderous rain pelting at the roof of the trailer until it drowned out the noise of the VHS player and the usual creaks of the treads as they settled further and further into the sand below.
In the morning, there would be floods and disaster as the humans complained once again of “acid rain”, the detriment to their crops.
Maybe WALL-E was too inhuman—or perhaps too human. For in that moment, as rain crashed into the trailer and thunder boomed around him—flooding his audio sensors with too much stimulus to focus properly on the screen, let alone the faint music emanating from the VHS player’s speakers—he wasn’t thinking of humans or their crops. His attention was focused solely on the roaring sky above and the pristine white EVE unit beside him.
She was fidgeting with a spinning metal device (he’d overheard the Axiom computer call it an egg beater), paying neither the storm nor him any mind. Usually, WALL-E didn’t mind what she did, as long as she responded to his occasional prompts and questions. As long as she was beside him.
However, this evening was different. His usual pastimes weren’t holding his attention, his thoughts often broken by the loud grumbles and cracks of thunder overhead and the constant battering of rain on the metal roof. His most recent attempt to climb out of this strange slump led him to playing Hello, Dolly! again, but how could Dolly help now when he couldn’t even hear her?
When Cornelius and Barnaby blew up the cellar (and even that noise was overshadowed by the storm), WALL-E turned to look at the other sitting beside him.
She’d long since changed her official designation to EVA, and he spoke her name— her name! —over the storm without a hint of faltering in his speakers.
She answered in a hum, head raising from the egg beater to meet his gaze with her own blank-blue-beautiful expression.
“Directive?” WALL-E asked loudly, straining his speakers to their maximum volume to be heard above the rain.
EVA—clever EVA, best-friend EVA—understood the question for what it was, not what it could be or had been.
When you only communicate in so many words, sometimes they have different meanings. They were getting better at deciphering each other’s idiosyncrasies.
She hummed again, then said loudly but not unkindly, “Stay.” She emphasized the word by pointing to the screen, where a vibrant rainbow of humans danced along the street. A faint melody reached through the calamity of the storm, broken into stray syllables: Put on… Sunday… the world…
WALL-E grumbled without words; the sound of water against metal hid the static in his voice.
She probably thought he was bored. Thought he’d go running off again, as he had a tendency to do when things caught his ever-shifting attention.
But she was wrong, because although his attention wasn't here, it was still with her. Always with her.
“Directive—” EVA repeated in that same tone, and WALL-E returned her apologetic look with a tilt of his head. “Stay. Watch.” She pointed to the screen again which, until then, she’d been content to ignore in favor of the strange metal contraption.
She probably knew this scene best. (She’d even scanned it the first time.) It must have burned its colors into the screen for how many times he’d played it, and it had never failed to make him dance before. It wouldn’t be failing if he could hear it.
Thunder rumbled loudly overhead.
WALL-E nodded and slumped into himself, conceding to her judgment. He couldn't really go anywhere at the moment, and he’d tried most things already, short of more drastic measures like renovating his entire collection. He really didn’t want to go that far.
Cleaning was meant for the outside world. Not here.
For several long minutes, he tapped his claws together idly, trying to make out the noise of the movie and watching the familiar characters go about the same story he knew by heart.
His thoughts, as synthesized as they were, still raced along sky and energy. Propelled forward by treads, fire extinguisher foam, blue sonic pulses. It was the storm, he thought, giving him all this energy. Letting him float away to that old yearning place where his heart once settled for years in solitude.
But he wasn’t alone anymore.
A high-pitched, wheezing and electrical sigh came from his side, reverberating in his gears, though he could barely hear it. One of EVA’s hands reached over to lock in his, joining their fingers together in a familiar gesture. The separate rims of his eyes drooped in confusion, like a human would open their mouth in a silent gasp, and he stared at her with awe-admiration-aimless curiosity.
“Stay,” she said, firmly this time. “Watch.”
The film had reached the hat shop scene, and Cornelius was dancing with a bewildered Dolly around a table. And now that I’m dancing, who cares if I ever stop! his shout cut through the weather, clearer than anything else.
WALL-E could imagine Dolly’s next line— That’s wonderful, Mr. Hackl —but he couldn’t hear it.
The song had never been his favorite, though he’d seen the entire film multiple times after finding a complete, uncorroded VHS. He grumbled again and would have stood to fast-forward the tape if EVA hadn’t locked their hands together.
“Feeling?” she asked suddenly. A new word.
He looked at her for a moment. “F—” he tried, “Feeeee—?”
“Feeling,” she repeated without the upward lilt, letting him hear the word. Her other hand moved from her side, finger pointed, and poked at his front panel, right on the half-full bars of yellow displaying his battery level. “Feeling.”
“Feee-ling,” he finally managed, the sounds awkward. He made a frustrated noise and tried again: “Feeling.”
EVA nodded and poked his battery display again. “Feeling?”
He knew, technically, what the word meant. He’d been programmed with the same basic understanding of English as any other robot, even if vocal synthesis proved a challenge. Feeling was an emotional state, a sensory experience, a sensitivity to something.
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what it meant—he just couldn’t decide what she meant by it.
“Feeling?” he replied. Before she could repeat it again, he continued, “Doooolly?” Happy, company, singing and dancing?
She shook her head, ever-understanding and ever-frustrated by his lack of understanding. “WALL-E,” she said; and before he could melt at the way she said his name, “Stars?”
Don't look for shooting stars, Dolly sang in his head. For love is only love.
That’s not what EVA meant. He didn’t understand.
“Dancing,” he answered, for they’d danced in the stars once. Look at me, I’m dancing! They’d danced since then, and they would again, but once, they’d been among the stars.
EVA didn’t refute this, but she didn’t seem satisfied either. He was missing something.
“Stars,” she repeated. “WALL-E.”
This time he did melt at the name, sighing as the sound washed over his audio processor and momentarily drowned out the cacophony above them.
EVA huffed, exasperated, and said louder, “WALL-E!”
And even when she was angry, she’d say his name.
She made an inhuman groan and gripped tighter at his hand, bringing his senses back to Earth just as she’d done before. Just as she’d always do.
You touch and, sang head-Dolly, Still you touch the ground.
He jumped in surprise, looking in bewilderment at their linked hands like he’d forgotten they were there.
But she’d understand that. They’d both been alone a long time.
“Stars?” She tapped the space where his replaced motherboard rested inside its compartment. “Feeling.”
Oh.
By stars— he suddenly realized, still reveling in the ghost-touch on his panel and the squeeze of her hand—she meant feeling, and by feeling she meant hurt. His motherboard held much of his memory, and when it was damaged…
Faulty memory. She must be trying to use a human phrase: Seeing stars. Spacing out. Shutting down.
But he was here. Here with her. The rain passing over them.
WALL-E shook his head. “Dancing.” He raised his unoccupied arm and waved it about energetically. “Dolly.” He pointed to the screen, where Ambrose and Irmengard were strolling in time together, a sketch pad held out in Irmengard’s hand. “EVA. Feeling—EVA.”
He was recontextualizing it, he knew, by adding her name to the word.
Again: “EVA—stars. EVA… dancing.” He was willing her to understand. To see that stars didn’t have to hurt. That they could just be stars, and she could be among them. They could be beautiful, and they could dance together again, if she would allow him that.
Just because he wasn't all there right now—his mind caught up in emotions and frustrations he shouldn't have—didn't mean he wasn't there. Didn’t mean he’d left her. Didn't mean he meant to.
She had to know that.
Her face changed, glitching slightly as the ovals of her eyes cut at the top, making her look sad. “WALL-E—rain,” she said, but he still didn’t know what she meant.
As if summoned, thunder cracked overhead, so loud it shook the foundations of the trailer.
WALL-E didn’t let go of EVA’s hand, even as she jumped and her other arm reshaped into a gun, which she aimed at the ceiling. Gently, before she could blow another hole in the roof and flood the trailer, he tugged her back down, letting her slowly turn back to him and store away the gun with a frustrated groan. The programmed instinct to survive-hunt-obliterate subsided, and EVA—his EVA, who laughed as they danced and said his name with conviction, happy or angry—returned.
He could feel the tension in her, vibrating beneath her plastic and metal shell.
“Eee-vah?” His speakers crackled and dragged on the word. “EVA. Feeling?”
She shook her head. Silence but for the rain.
“EVA.” He moved his head to look at her, but she turned away. She wouldn’t let him turn her own question on herself; she had too much pride for that. WALL-E sighed sadly and rested back into a neutral position.
He let the mood hang. Let it settle into the metal floor and drip downward like the rain, down to the damp ground beneath the trailer.
The music dropped as the song came to a close, growing too quiet to be heard above the weather. Screen-Dolly, clad in a purple dress and hat, was sitting on a bench watching all the couples go by her, holding a locket in her hands. Then, suddenly she was standing, singing, yearning.
Before the parade passes by, he could nearly hear her voice. Ephram, let me go.
He looked to EVA again, but she’d returned to the egg beater. She was just staring at it absently. Watching it.
Watch, EVA’s voice said in his memory. Stay.
But he couldn't.
WALL-E wasn’t human, but sometimes he acted too human, such as now. Such as when EVA told him to stay, draping towels over his head or setting his favorite film into the VHS player, and all he wanted was to feel something. Do something of actual value. No piles of trash, no barren trailers long-abandoned, no Axiom lurking in the sky just beyond reach.
He wanted to live.
Ephram, let me go.
Maybe she was right, or at least had the right to be concerned: His mind was dancing among the stars, but his body was here, gripping EVA’s hand tightly in the storm, memorizing the refraction of her sky-blue eyes on the metal ground and calculating the exact rhythm of rain pattering on the roof. He was watching the stars again, when really he should be minding the storm upon them.
He’d gone so long wishing to live, but change was difficult. Sometimes he still felt he was watching the sky on that platform, ghosts singing their condolences in love songs, his only friends a cockroach and the music.
When the whistles blow, screen-Dolly sang clearly, breaking up his thoughts. The rain had receded enough that her voice overtook the trailer’s ambience. And the cymbals crash / And the sparklers light the sky…
WALL-E looked at EVA again. “EVA?” She finally turned to face him. “EVA. Directive?”
“Directive?” she repeated.
He nodded.
EVA stared at him for a time, and he half expected a harsh classified. She'd glare, tell him off, and pick up the egg beater again. She’d ignore him. Even if she hadn’t done that in earnest since they’d returned to Earth, the fear was always there.
Instead, she held up her other hand, fingers wide, and said quietly with no rain to cover her words, “WALL-E.”
Oh, WALL-E thought to himself. Oh…
“WALL-E—” he pointed to himself, “directive: EVA.”
She shook her head. “WALL-E—directive: stay.”
“Stars—EVA.”
She simulated a blink, the projection of her eyes glitching for a moment as a blue line crawled up her face like an old tv.
“Stars,” he said again, “EVA.” One in the same.
“No.” Don’t say that. “WALL-E— stay.”
Stay with me.
She didn't understand. Oh, EVA—his persistent, caring EVA. Sometimes she was too practical for her own good. Her presence pawed at something in his worn-out servos, reaching past the erosion from sand and wind to warm the cold metal.
“WALL-E… stars,” he urged. “Dancing. EVA.”
I’m with you.
Her features didn’t relent, still stuck in that sad expression.
How do you show someone you care when you only have so many words? When you’re holding hands and listening together as rain slowly ceases on the roof? When the normal sounds of night begin to pervade the air once more?
How do you tell someone, I’m always looking for you. My mind wanders because I’m looking for you, because I forgot I already found you.
How can you say, Even when we’re not dancing—when I’m alone, staring into that void and those specks of distant hope with hands empty—I still want your palm in mine. Ground me in the stars, in you; you’re one to me.
Was it even possible?
“Staaaars—” he continued slowly, glitching, “good. EVA.”
The sadness peeled from her face in an instant, and her eyes went wide. “Stars—good?” she asked.
She’d spent most of her life in the stars. She’d never watched them in small glimpses through the clouds, hoping, wishing, wanting. Stars, to her, were distraction and false-beauty veiling freedom she’d never have. They weren’t hope—they were happiness she couldn't share.
Happiness. He hoped to give her some of it now. Hoped and wanted, for to him she was equivalent to the stars themselves, and her hand in his was but a single touch of joy he owed her from their mutual years of waiting and watching.
They could never stay like that forever.
He nodded. “Dancing,” he clarified. Dance with me. The stars are ours.
She stared at him a moment. “Alone?”
I don’t belong there.
He shook his head and made a negative noise.
Despite what she may have believed, WALL-E never taught EVA how to dance. She always knew, just as he, and they both had to discover it alone. But it was together they discovered how to dance in the stars.
The stars have always been ours.
Slowly, he took their joined hands and raised them. He wasn’t quite sitting, but he stood anyway, rising higher on his treads and rolling backward, pulling her along in the air with him.
Absently, he noticed Hal climbing near the screen, but he spared the cockroach little thought.
WALL-E could no longer hear the rain. He took this to mean it had passed—or, at least, the worst of it had, anyhow. He led EVA to the trailer hatch, reached for the button hanging to the side, and held it down. The door slid slowly open, revealing the dark night with its clouds and whistling wind.
Water, which had pooled at the seams of the door, slid off the platform and made the metal surface glisten. Some of it dropped down to drench the sand in dark spots below.
EVA made a startled, questioning noise as WALL-E pulled her down the ramp. He stopped just short of hitting the dirt and tilted his head up to stare at the sky, which was still covered by clouds.
From inside, the VHS player—its volume still on maximum from the storm—began to play a familiar song:
It only takes a moment…
Hal had changed it, the determined little cockroach. How, he wasn't even sure, but WALL-E beeped happily at the melody he’d heard so many times before.
For your eyes to meet and then
And there—the clouds parted just enough to see through the dust and pollution of the atmosphere, giving them a clear view of the nebulas just beyond Earth. Those same nebulas where once he and EVA had danced together, sharing a moment of happy-honest-heartfelt relief. A moment of respite. Hope.
Your heart knows in a moment
You will never be alone again
“WALL-E…” EVA said quietly. When he tore his gaze from the sky, he found her watching him. “Good.”
“Good?”
She nodded. “Feeling?”
I held her for an instant
This time, he had an answer: He held up his open hand, letting her slowly take it as she had the other one. “Good,” he replied. He pulled her closer, twirling her around and relishing the giggles she made. “Good!”
“WALL-E!” she laughed.
But my arms felt sure and strong
He beeped happily and came to a slow stop, letting her giggles die down before saying, “Directive?”
It only takes a moment…
She touched their foreheads together with a spark that melted his servos with joy, sending him into a love-drunken daze for several long seconds. When some clarity returned to him, she spoke one word: “Dancing.”
To be loved a whole life long…
And so together, they danced beneath their stars.