Sparks: an urban fairytale by Lawrence Marvit

The girl, Josephine, is a wondeful lass who can find neither happiness nor peace outside of her job at a small auto garage as a good mechanic. Her home life is hellish with a fat bullying thug of a father and a doped up broken zombie of a mother in a spiteful neighborhood that sees her as a freak. All of this takes their toll on her self esteem as she looks on enviously at the social life that other women seem to take on at ease.

It all culminates with a flight of fancy as she builds a construction of a idealed perfect man from spare auto parts. That little indulgence takes on a wondrous tone when a freak bolt of lightning strikes the construct and brings him to life. Eventually, the mechanical man and Josephine meet and the girl gains a companion she never anticipated.

In the story that follows, Jo struggles to teach the Robot, who soon dubs himself as Galahad from Arthurian legend, how to communicate and the complexities of life and existence. In return, Galahad helps make her see the true beauty of her nature that the world of fools around her cannot perceive even as she strives to fit in a square peg in a round hole kind of world. However, events take a terrible course of their own that will forever change the lives of the characters.

This was a very moving story as you feel the despair and loneliness she feels. It is a story of finding one's own path and taking the harder road to find happiness. Well done.