Chapter 3: Three

I was born… incomplete. I had no legs. My lungs didn’t work right. Some of my organs weren’t fully formed. My skeleton was twisted, asymmetrical.

I couldn’t breathe by myself. Eat by myself. I couldn’t even control my bowels or bladder. If it weren’t for all the machines I was hooked up to, as well as the team of doctors and nurses around me, I wouldn’t be able to live.

I was just a torso, with a head, and two stubby little arms with hands that had two fingers like a claw. A useless sack of flesh, no good to anyone.

I had always wondered why my parents had kept me alive instead of just pulling the plug when I was still a baby. It would’ve been easier for them to do. It wasn’t like I was a cute baby; they couldn’t even pick me up and hold me. There shouldn’t have been any bond there, any love. But still, they decided to keep me around. I guess it could have been since I was their firstborn and they felt they had some… responsibility towards me.

Fortunately, (Or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it.) my brain was normal. It was the right size, no defects, and fully functional. So despite how I looked, I was completely human where it mattered. At least that’s what I had been told.

My parents were wealthy, so they were able to afford me the best treatments. The best hospitals, the best doctors, the best medicine money could buy. I was also able to get an education; I had tutors in various subjects visit me, teaching me about math, science, how to read, and all the basics that every functioning adult should know.

But the best thing my parents had gotten me was my laptop. I was able to use a mouse, and with a virtual keyboard, I could type and surf the internet. It was like my entire life revolved around that little machine. It was how I communicated, using a text-to-speech program that made the words I typed speak aloud in a robotic tone. It was how I learned my lessons, with my tutors uploading instructions and assignments to various learning software that I had. But most importantly, it was how I escaped.

The internet is the greatest thing humanity has ever created, at least in my opinion. Movies, television shows, books, stories; every form of escapism was at my fingertips. I could read or watch for hours upon hours, letting me forget (if only for a time) that I was what I was. I especially loved anime. Some people might call that childish, but I don’t care. I enjoyed the stories, and the colors, and the brightness. It was a stark contrast from the bland white walls of my hospital room, which had been the entirety of my world. Video games were also cool, even if I couldn’t play them. I mostly just watched other people enjoy them on livestreams or videos on Youtube.

And that was what my life was like. I would wake up, watch or read something online, the nurse would come by with my meal and feed me through the tube, I’d watch or read something online, eventually, the nurse would come back to feed me again, I’d watch or read something online, maybe a doctor would come by to ask how I was doing and we’d have a short chat, I’d watch or read something online, the nurse would come back for my evening meal, I’d watch or read something online, the nurse would empty out my bedpan then give me a bath with a sponge, I’d watch or read something online, and then eventually fall asleep. Every day, over and over again. That was my routine.

Sometimes the routine would be broken when one of my family visited. But that hasn’t happened in a long, long time.

I remember when I was ten, during one of my parents’ visits, they brought along someone. Well, two someones, actually. Two children, a boy and a girl, dressed in their Sunday best. Father introduced them as Josh and Molly, my little brother and sister. I had heard about them from previous visits of course, but this was the first time I had ever seen them. They were twins, born four years after I was. I thought they were beautiful. Healthy, precious kids with their whole life ahead of them. They could be anything they wanted to be, do anything they wanted. They were so inspiring and full of potential. The world was at their fingertips.

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I tried to give them a smile, but the various tubes running through my mouth made it hard. I doubt they noticed though. They kept staring at the floor, not looking at me at all. My parents did most of the talking, with me adding some words now and then through my text-to-speech. That visit lasted a whole wonderful twenty-six minutes, and then it was over. My father and mother led my little brother and sister out of the room, and that was the last I ever saw of them.

Eventually, my parents’ weekly visits would turn into monthly ones. Then every other month. Then every several months. Finally, they would stop coming at all. It was my father who first stopped visiting me. One day, my mother came alone, my father not with her. She made some excuse about him being busy at work, and at the time I believed her. Then she too would stop coming. Her visits grew less and less frequent, until one day it just became a reality that she was gone. Four years had passed since I last saw her.

I missed them, of course. I desperately wanted to email them, to ask how they were doing and when they would visit me again. I wanted to ask how Josh and Molly were, how their lives were going and how they were growing up. I wanted to beg them to forgive me, for whatever it was that I had done to make them stop visiting, and that I was sorry for ever existing. But I never sent those emails, I felt that I didn't have the right.

I suppose I should hate them for abandoning me, but I don’t. I could understand what they were going through, after all. It must have been hard having to take time out of their busy lives just to visit this useless creature every now and then. Having to pretend to care just so that thing could keep on living, thinking it was loved. They deserved to live their lives, happy and free, not have this heavy chain around their necks weighing them down forever.

And now, they didn’t have to. They were free of me, finally. I was no longer a burden to them.

I don’t really know how I had gotten here, to this place. To be in this wonderful new body. What did happen to me? Did I die sometime during my sleep? Was this the afterlife, and was this new body my reward for suffering for so long? Or did I simply have an aneurysm or a stroke, and all this was just my comatose brain’s grand delusion?

Whatever this is, wherever this is, I hope I stay forever. I don’t want to go back to what I was. To that hospital room, to the pain, to that life that had no future.

Please. Don’t ever end. Please.

Please.

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