Muscle-shaped Memento

I happen to be a cyborg made of patched-up limbs drawn from all four corners of this giant junkyard. Though this may first seem impressive, I do admit to my constant discomfort, as these limbs are graphed on haphazardly and the constant knee jerks are sometimes a problem.

I do, however, have an incredibly fast pair of legs that kick up a great deal of dust when I choose to make a dash for it. If I’m fast enough, I’ll feel invisible to the other cyborgs that meander through the junkyard, as if I were a great wind bound for higher ground. Cyborgs who know me joke that I’m like a fun size version of those hurricanes that blast through the Southern neighbourhoods and destroy everything in their path. But sprinting is exactly what would save me from such an occurrence. Sprinting is a one-stone two-birds kind of thing. It is the most exhilarating thing out there that won’t kill you. If you can sprint, you can save your own life, anywhere, anytime. When you can hear the wind whisper defeated curses in your ear, that’s when the adrenaline turns into the triumph of a runner’s high.

As an experienced sprinter, survival is a breeze, so to speak. I’ve become an expert at avoiding tripping over the corpses of cyborgs who failed to scavenge enough minerals to survive. I’ve learned to sharpen my sixth sense when it comes to predicting where hurricanes begin and where landslides fall, despite a few near misses. One time, I nearly got hit by one when I tried to save a cyborg that was high off swallowing white paint and who simply didn’t want to move. As the massive shadow of the landslide fell over her, she slowly spread her arms wide open. The last thing I saw was her aloof smile smeared with white. I’d never dashed faster in my life. You can call me a sprinting junkie all you want. A runner’s high is still far safer than a painter’s.

Despite all of my exercising expertise, I can only manage shorter sprints. I’ve never been a long distance kind of girl. Due to my patched-up limbs, the eventual knee spasm causes my legs to disobey me, resulting in an incredible stuntman tumble. I end up with a face full of dirt. The damage sometimes leaves me bedridden for a whole week, and I am forced to realign my limbs and lubricate my joints as I watch the days pass before me. Through this long and painstaking process, I feel the strange desire to slow down. But this eventually passes once I am back on my feet.

Every now and then, I collide with other cyborgs, and when their eyes particularly captivate me, sparks fly and oil leaks. These are beautiful encounters, but just like fireworks, they are also fire hazards. You mustn’t linger for too long as it isn’t safe to admire their beauty within close range. You must look the other cyborg in the eye, stretch the seconds thin, feel the fluttering eternity, then sprint, sprint on, far away into the distance. As you slow into a light jog, you can take the time to list all the things that made the encounter beautiful. Trust that I have perfected my methods in the art of safe exhilaration.

Another beautiful thing is a home with soundproof walls that can still capture the sound of rain at night. Sadly there is no such thing. If you can hear rain, you will often hear screaming too, outside, where some poor sod is in pain from rusting.

Everyday, after hours of scavenging and running, I make my way home to my iron shed and seal the entrance of my cage at my own free will. I then force a copious amount of springs down my throat to avoid iron deficiency. Thanks to sheer physical exhaustion, I’m never tempted to swallow white paint in order to fall asleep. If I ever miss the taste however, I turn to an old relic of mine to soothe my vain desires. It is a golden pendulum hanging on a chain. My grandfather told me that it is in the shape of the muscle that pumped a red, vital liquid through our bodies, long before the great nuclear disruption that mutated us into the metallurgic age. The pendulum is smooth and unrusted. It has a slit through its side, but my fingers have never been cunning enough to open it. The mystery makes for a calming memento during my insomnias. In the darkness, I lie in bed under my metal sheet and hold it in my hands. As I count every chain link, I list the things I am and the things I swear to never become.

Yet, one night, when my side of the junkyard was being pelted with rain, I simply couldn’t take the screams of the homeless any longer. I broke into the lockbox sitting on the highest shelf and sucked out the small amount of white paint remaining. Knocked out on my bed, writhing in oblivious visions, I fell asleep and dreamt I was a wooden toy at the back of an old garage sale.

I had been placed next to a broken mirror in which I could see a wind-up key protruding from my back. I had springbox arms, wheels for legs and dotted wooden eyes. To my great delight, I had the ocular charm of an old sepia film.

A robust cyborg, tall and made of sturdy iron, appeared behind me and gently began to wind up the key. As he did, a pair of copper wings raised themselves up from my back. I began to shake violently, my springbox arms rattling against my body. I ogled at him with my wooden eyes.

‘Why on Earth would I want to fly?’ I barked at him.

The robust cyborg stopped spinning the key immediately. The surprise in his eyes slowly turned into a patient sadness. We stayed there for a long moment, with his hands on the wound-up key, locking eyes with me, not knowing what to do. Then suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw the muscle-shaped memento upon a nearby shelf, lathered in white paint, hanging from a protruding broom handle. As it slid from its position and smashed into pieces on the ground, I cried out, and, in the shock of it all, the robust cyborg let go of the key, and I awoke.

Eyes open under my cold sheet of steel, I found it unbearably bitter that I was not that creature from the analog dream, instead a flawed patchwork of wayward limbs. An analog life would mean only joy, no rust or spasms, no loose bolts nor lust for white paint, no tornadoes or landslides, only the timeless grain of polished wood and the purity of being politely animated by love.

As I rolled over in bed, I heard faint shouts coming from outside.

‘Landslide! Landslide!’

I grabbed all that mattered - a pocketful of springs and my muscle-shaped memento - left my shed and ran as fast as I could. I didn’t look back when I heard the crumble of cheap steel under an avalanche of trash. I simply kept sprinting, thoughtless, hoping the wind would cleanse me and let me forget everything.

I dashed across the junkyard, dodging cyborg corpses, clutching the muscle-shaped memento in my fist.. The whole world was the colour of rust in the dawning light. I held in my impulsion to scream. As I dashed through a cloud of dust, I ran head first into the torso of a cyborg. The collision left a significant dent on my forehead.

‘You fool!’ I shouted holding my head in my hands, ‘You hollow-bodied white-muncher! You’re not worth a single pound of trash for blocking my…’

I trailed off when I looked up at him and realised he had an uncanny resemblance to the cyborg from last night’s dream. He was made of corrugated iron, had crafted himself with a keen eye for function and detail. His hands were slender and cunning and his chrome eyes were clouded with opaque thought.

Without uttering a word, he nursed the dent on my head with his cold hands. I must have stared into his eyes for far too long. Eternity was not felt through the looming promise of fleeing, but through the depth of chrome eyes. Danger was not sensed through the combustion of sparks and oil, but through the fear that I myself, limbs and mind, could fall apart at any given moment.

Without a thought, I sprinted far away into the distance, faster than fleeing any firecracker encounter, faster than running from any cyborg-crushing landslide. The wind seemed to be laughing in my ear. In an attempt to return to sanity, I tried to make a list of all things beautiful in this world, but my mind always returned to the robust cyborg, and with such quickening thoughts, I did the most tremendous tumble into the dirt. My legs gave out, I fell flat on my face, and I had such fast momentum that my body slid for about twenty metres, chin scraping upon the ground. Along the way, all the trash that lay about amassed upon my body. When I was done sliding, I lay there for a good five minutes, head buried in a heap of plastic scraps, unable to move. I eventually tilted my head up, my rusting neck creaking. Before me, I saw a lake filled with slick black oil in the distance, gleaming with the burning red light of our giant sun, and I began to cry.

‘What’s that in your hand?’ I heard a soft voice call behind me.

It was the robust cyborg. The enormous hunk of metal sat beside me and offered me a hand to sit upright. I felt such little strength, such pain, that I could not even bear to look him in the eyes. Though he saw I was paralysed by my fear, he did not move away his hand. I listened to our breathing.

Shaking, I took his hand and hoisted myself up. I noticed his agile fingers and thin nails.

‘What’s in your hand?’ he whispered.

I handed him my memento, too weak to speak.

‘Does the heart open?’ he asked.

I nodded, unsure what a heart exactly was.

He wedged his nail through the opening. I shuffled closer to him. Our shoulders were touching when he opened the golden locket.