[ WP ] `` This body is n't even mine anymore ... ''

Does a metal heart beat if no one can hear it? 
 
 I had my heart replaced as a child- I was born with some form of congenital heart disease. After that, I had to get the majority of my limbic system replaced due to certain concerns of rejection. 
 
 It was about health problems, at first. 
 
 My parents thought that since I was replacing so much of myself, they might as well throw the rest of me away as well. 
 
 My brain is encased in a cage of metal, the last bit of me that is still the me I was born with. I think about the mouldering flesh that is no longer me sometimes, I wonder if it feels anything with nothing but a heart left, waiting in a freezer somewhere in the hospital for another body that is willing to settle for organic parts. 
 
 That is a very rare thing these days. 
 
 It takes a while to get used to a body of metal. The neural connections take time to adjust to and there is a slight lag that needs to be accounted for. The first time I picked up my school bag after my full body transplant, I nearly tore it in half by accident. 
 
 Books and papers scattering across the ground. Whispers between corridors, awe maybe, or fear. 
 
 I hear some people go mad, those with overly sensitive nervous systems can not adapt well to the cyberization process. They live in special homes designated by the city government. I have volunteered there before and sat amongst them, my brethren. 
 
 I wonder if my heart can still beat. 
 
 The me that I am is a collection of metal, a collection of numbers poured out into a shell, my soul manifesting in a dead and cold place. 
 
 Am I still considered alive? Is the copy of my soul in my recovery unit also another me, waiting for a chance to live? 
 
 Something happened recently, or perhaps a thousand years ago. 
 
 I was in the field in a body that fell into a train and died. I lived alone by then and everyone forgot the ancient recovery unit in my country home. I was sleeping in a digital place for a very long time before someone downloaded me again. 
 
 Am I still human? Am I dead or alive, when a copy of me died a thousand years ago? 
 
 I live in a world where flesh is no more. This new time, this new place is all metal and lights and glass. The earth far below is barren of flesh and plant. I live alone, with an AI that does whatever I please in the last bastion on the face of the earth. 
 
 There is no one left to hear the beats of my heart, not even me.
