To Be Human

To Be Human
by Chris Nance

Optic sensors by Apple. Cerebral Processor by IBM. Endoskeleton by Caterpillar. External carapace by Louis Vuitton. Toyota had collaborated with the best, most innovative companies to come up with the greatest cybernetic physique every created, the ‘Supermodel,’ and Debra stared past her reflection in the department store window dreaming of a better life…one without the aches in her joints and the weight around her midsection. Behind her, passersby on the sidewalk gave her little regard, but in her mind the whole world was staring at her…gawking at the fat awkward body that so often disappointed her. It was that much more frustrating with her dreams on the other side of the glass, just out of reach in the display.

Nowadays, it seemed everyone in the city had a new body, from the powerful CEO to the grocer on the corner. All you had to do was sign the lease and it was yours. She could surely afford it, but Debra was one of those few humans for which a true transfer of consciousness into the cybernetic relays wasn’t possible. Some sort of genetic anomaly, they told her. And, with the affordability of the newest models, she was becoming ever more alone. At night she dreamed of the ease of a mechanical replacement, amplified now in this sea of busy perfection.

She closed her eyes, if only to wish for her world to change, for her humanity to being a blessing, not a curse. Then suddenly behind her, the hustle of the packed metropolis, the scurrying of crowds, became a sea of frozen statues filling the square. You see, all it took was a wish and the unpredictability of a solar flare…a singular electromagnetic pulse from the sun in the Earth’s atmosphere, to remind her how special she really was.


299 words