he wiggled his fingers then slowly made a fist with his new hand.
this feels real.
he stretched his hand open. he pulled backwards on his pinky finger until the nail almost touched his wrist. it didn’t hurt.
they promised me no pain. i can feel it, but it doesn’t hurt.
letting his finger spring back into place, he turned his head. first to the left, then to the right. up and down. side to side. it felt almost unbearably real.
he slowly experimented with moving each part of his new body. hadn’t he asked for this; to be remade, reborn, in this cybernetic form? why was he surprised that it had happened? why did he doubt it so much? he’d read the research, seen the prototypes, talked to the first, defective, recipients. he’d risked everything to reach this moment, yet he still disbelieved.
how is it that even with an artificial brain, i still have these debilitating human thought patterns?
even in his thoughts, the word “human” was uttered with such contempt that anyone overhearing would have cringed at the malice it contained.
he’d searched his entire life for a means to escape the unbearable existence of his own flesh. now, on the dawn of his new life, he was coming to the realization that it wasn’t his cells which had held him hostage. it had been him all along. the core of him. his thoughts. his mind. his soul.
i’ve become frankenstein’s monster. i’m pinnochio in reverse. a boy made a puppet. why didn’t i see it sooner? now i will never be free.
he would have sobbed then, if they’d built him tear ducts.
i wish i had known. at least i would have died.
[originally posted on July 27, 2001]