The Hollow Body

By: submission | June 30, 2026

Author: Mark Renney

Replacements are more prevalent than flesh and blood, skin and bone, almost everyone at some point becomes part of the System. There are still a few holdouts, of course, those professing it is better to age gracefully but there isn’t anything graceful about the geriatrics shuffling about, hiding themselves away in those foul smelling care facilities.

It is no longer necessary for us to appear old but the surgery, the injections and the gym will only take us so far. We can preserve our bodies but only for so long. As a race we have not been able to eradicate disease and addiction and we break down. The body is a fragile shell and eventually will begin to split and crack. Fluids seep from inside of us, blood, mucus and pus. Our joints creak and our organs fail but when something is not functioning as it should or is causing us pain we can, as long as we embrace the System, simply replace the failing part. Most of us do this piece-meal, over the years and the decades as required. We become vain and secretive about just how hollow we’ve become but the majority succumb. Whenever we are forced to slow down and take a breath, we re-evaluate, add another appendage, a section of the torso, or wherever we might require the replacement. Although I haven’t taken a breath, or eaten food or sipped a drink in decades, I’m ok with that as I have had a good run and in my time have tried everything and I really do mean everything and now I crave for nothing.

I am entirely inorganic now and my body is wholly hollow and this shell will not crack or split. I have no bones or organs, no fluids, just the digital stew that is keeping us, the majority, afloat. Whenever I look in the mirror I see a perfect specimen, a work of art. I am not alone, there are of course others, but nevertheless I feel that thrill and a deep sense of satisfaction. I’m looking at someone who has lived a life almost entirely without envy or regret, someone who hasn’t compromised. I will soon make the final transition and replace my brain. It will be different, I know, and I will no longer have ‘independence’. The System will make all of my choices, where I go, what I do, and how I can be useful.