Plastic!

Plastic!

I guess I first noticed the other day. Something seemed odd about my left hand. It was kind of stiff and twitched a bit. I touched it and it felt like it was made of plastic! It seemed a little unlikely that my hand would be made out of plastic and I did have a lot of work to do. So I just put the question aside for the time being.
The feeling did not go away though. The plastic hand – I began to think of it as plastic, even though rationally that still seemed a little unlikely – did not work all that perfectly. It was a pretty good copy though. It looked pretty real. It even had hair on it and veins. And I could sort of feel through it. Not quite like a real hand, but I could feel. It hurt sometimes too.
I had to work a lot those days. Maybe I always spent a lot of time trying to work though I did not seem to be getting all that much done. But that just meant I had to work more. Over time, it felt like other parts of me must be turning into plastic too. I could barely walk sometimes. And it hurt a lot. Does it hurt to be made out of plastic? I was not sure what the benefit was supposed to be.
I think my wife was getting sick of hearing me complain that I did not feel so good. Why didn’t I do something about it? She used to say as if it was so easy. How can you keep yourself from turning into plastic? The doctors would probably just laugh at me if I told them. Certainly they wouldn’t know how to help me.
I do think that she could have done something to help me – though I do not know what. She should have realized that I could not help her very much if I was made out of plastic. Actually, she probably realized it too much. She knew I would protest before she even asked and did not ask me anymore. It was as if she did not much care if I helped her or not. Just don’t go about feeling bad all the time, she would say.
But I do feel bad. And I do not understand what is happening. It is like I have artificial limbs, but I don’t remember ever having an operation to replace my hands! Or anything else. It seems strange even to have to say that! A person who has had his hands replaced would certainly remember. It seems like a pretty fundamental change! My hands are not real!
Maybe something happened to me. I mean, maybe I was in some kind of accident that was so horrible I have blocked the whole memory from my mind. They did a pretty good job on these hands, I suppose. They looked real even if they did not work so well. I wonder how long I have had plastic hands without noticing. Maybe they are bionic and can do something my old human hands could not do.
My wife certainly must have known if I had had such a major operation! But maybe she is just not telling me. Maybe it is part of letting me forget about the whole accident and she does not want to remind me. Maybe having plastic hands is part of what she does not like about me right now. Maybe I am becoming a lot of trouble.
She says I either complain that I cannot do things or I just accept sitting around like some kind of plastic monster. I do not try to break the cycle or anything. But what am I supposed to do. Sometimes it is just easier to accept that I have plastic limbs now.
It is not just the hands anymore now. I suppose it is only logical … if you can switch hands, you can probably switch the rest of the body too! It is hard to tell though. I could never feel all that well with my legs – at least not for a long time. Touching them with my plastic hands does not prove all that much. But they sound like plastic too. And my feet.
Today I was touching my stomach. Was that plastic now too? – and my head? What do I have in my head, a computer? I cannot believe it. I still think of myself as real. I do not remember having any artificial parts.
It is getting harder to get my work done. I cannot worry about being plastic, but I cannot do much else either. I have to try at least to work. Come to think of it I really enjoy my work. It takes my mind off things.
Like why won’t my come out and tell me what is going on if she knows? She would have to know it if I were not real. You would have thought that a wife would have said something if she had noticed her husband was made of plastic. I can’t believe that she is just not telling me. I will have to ask her right out.
I did ask her. Just a minute ago. And you know what? She did know that I was made of plastic. It seemed normal to her! When I looked closer, I could tell that she was not real either. How long had she been like that! When I listened now, it was obvious that she was saying such strange perfect things.
What has happened to me? Has the whole world turned to plastic? Certainly everything around me looks fake. I watched my wife for a while. She had left me to do my work in the study as usual. When I crept into the living room, my wife was just sitting there quietly so that I could work. She never really does anything when I am not watching. It seems like she only exists to do what I expect of her. And it seems I do not expect much.
She is very nice to me now and polite and everything. Nothing wrong there. She does not even get mad at me anymore – like I guess was happening quite a lot not so long ago. And my plastic wife still does all the menial stuff for me – though I am beginning to understand why I thought she would not have noticed that my hands were made of plastic. It seemed incredible that no one warned me, but then I guess I had not realized she had been replaced by a doll either! I wonder when that happened.
Oh my god. I am only just beginning to realize what is happening. I really am alone in this plastic world. I mean, she has become plastic and I am plastic now too. I wonder if my wife – and maybe even I -- exist as a real person in some other world. The real world. I like to think that she at least is real out there somewhere. It is so boring to have her just do what somehow some programmer thinks I want her to do.
What is my wife doing out there without me? And is there a real me out there? Is he like me at all? Or am I like him? What would I do if I were real? What is going to happen to me now, trapped in this perfect plastic body, with a perfect plastic wife, forever?


This is a work in progress and perhaps should be deleted altogether. If you have any comments, I would welcome them at [e-mail]. Thanks.