Author : Tim Brown

The wind blew fiercely from behind him, ruffling his long chestnut colored hair and brushing it over his eyes. Absentmindedly he took his slender fingers and pushed the shoulder-length strands aside, hardly putting thought to the bellowing gales coming from the north. He should have felt the chill it was spreading over his body, should have had the hairs on his arms and legs standing on end, goose-bumps forming underneath.

Of course, he should have felt the fear of standing atop a seventy story building––on it’s edge no less. But there was nothing. No tremors; no disorientation; no fear. He held his hand out in front of his face staring blankly into his palm. Hard to believe under these thin layers of flesh and tissue something so simple lay underneath.

He glared into his palm now. His ears could practically hear the mechanized humming and clicks going on with the slightest movements of his body; the flow of data through cables and wiring (probably purchased at a local retail store). There was no mystery in here… nothing but junkyard computer parts conveniently structured in the form of a human. He tore his hand away from his eyes, the sight made him sick (if he had a stomach that could turn).

His gaze traveled downward. People––regular people were going on with their lives; not a care in the world. All different kinds. Tall; short; skinny; large. Some were walking or running, most of the others were driving or riding. Each had a different look or attitude about them. They were individuals; they were…. Unique. Hours before he had seen his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’, they had all looked alike, sleek, thin, beautiful, handsome; anything that had been deemed ‘pleasant upon the eyes’. He continued to watch the humans on their daily routines. His vision picked up on a child walking down the street; her mother was kneeling down, inspecting a freshly placed bandage on her knee, and placing a gentle kiss upon it.

Underneath their skin was where the mysteries began; and not just the anatomical structure. How did they come to be? What drives them on? What makes them…. Them? It was certainly more complicated than the central processor that motivated him.

He was an appliance, an experiment. Nothing more. Nobody would care for him––love him. He was a machine. Nothing more. No matter how human he looked, no matter how many emotions they could have programmed him to feel the fact remained was that he simply was not one of them.

He brought one leg forward and put his weight over. His body fell. On the way down his expression never changed, he made no more movements. He felt nothing and had no fear.

Because when he hit the ground, he would not be dead. He would simply be broken.