Subject: Jordan
"Light as a feather, strong as a bull"
My therapist began to tighten his grip on my arm.
I began to bite my tongue.
"Jordan, you have to try, it's never going to get better if you don't try."
It wasn't that I couldn't try. It was the fact that the pain was IMMENSE.
Strange concept for a post-robot, isn't it?
My therapist loosened his grip on my arm, and let it drop.
Immediately it fell off and hit the floor with a pound.
"Crap!" I cried, picking it up and twisting it back onto my elbow stub. "This thing is too expensive to drop!"
"Story of my life." Smirked Roberto as he wiped his hands on a towel. "Jordan, I think we're done for today."
I sighed and clenched my wrist.
"Hey." Roberto said, turning back around. "Don't clench it, you'll crush the circuits."
"Why does it even need circuits?" I asked. "Why can't it just be coded?"
"That's not possible." Laughed Roberto.
I shut my mouth, but in my head I knew that it was. I was a living example of science. Living with a physical robotic arm was so different than living with a virtual computer code system. Trust me.
I threw my sweat towel around my neck and made my way out of the physical therapy office. I began my walk down Florence Street back to my small apartment. Living in Spain was quite different than living in America. For one, the sky was bright and blue almost everyday. I loved it. I loved everything about this new life I was leading.
Except for the fact that I hadn't seen Lia in seventeen years years. I've heard around that she's grown up to become a fine woman, which I can totally believe, but after we took different paths once we docked here in Spain ten years ago, I hadn't seen, nor heard from her since.
She was the kind of woman that struck me stunned. She had been through all sorts of emotional turmoil but she still kept her head screwed on right and her goals and motivations in line. Robot or not, I could never survive what she had been through, after loosing her parents and her sisters to the government years back, only as a mere teenager.
While Lia was recovering from her emotional trauma, I had been through quite a lot myself. I knew once Lia decided to go on her own, I'd have no one to take care of me, and show me how to actually be a human being, so I went to stay with a bunch of side street bums, not knowing what I'd gotten myself into; only at the age of 18, what did I know?
They all spoke Spanish only, so my English did not suffice. If I'd had my previous brain, then I could speak ANY language I wanted, perfectly. Sometimes it did suck to be a man.
One night, I was trying to build a fire for my fellow spanish-speaking mates (keeping in mind that I hadn't ever built one before) and two of my guys Eduardo and Roberto were trying to show me how. Because of our little language barrier, communication wasn't too tight, and the next thing I knew, my hand was burnt to a crisp and the flames were traveling down my arm.
And that's how I got to where I am today. You can figure, I left those guys and took a cab to the hospital. I couldn't pay the man, since I'd never made a single cent in Spain, but seeing my arm he more or less kicked me out of the cab.
After the doctors put me under I had my whole forearm amputated, and once they realized that I had no identification on me, and no one around to help, they sent me to the metal hospital.
So now the doctors think I'm a mental man with no bearings WHATSOEVER.
I wasn't about to leave because they clothed me and fed me well. I just accepted the fact that this was going to be my home for a while.
Even though they thought I was mental.
