I can still feel the wind on my face.
See the bright sun reflecting off of the crystal blue water.
Smell the salt of the ocean.
Hear the waves…
But it’s so distant now. So far away. These memories, the good memories, are hard to find nowadays, hardly ever crossing my mind. So scarce.
The other memories, the bad ones, they’re much closer to me. They come unannounced, vivid and fast. The fear, the pain, the confusion. It’s all there.
My body being cut apart. My life being ripped away. The smell of blood and guts… my blood and guts.
It is my arrival into this hell that I most often find myself reliving, however. That one is the worst, I think. That one is filled with regret, filled with what-ifs.
I remember hearing the rhythmic spin of the solitary windmill, seeing the bright blue sky, the rolling hills of beautiful green grass. I remember seeing the flowers, so many beautiful flowers. I couldn’t stop myself from walking into that world. Those tranquil, idyllic hills called to me.
I knew then that it didn’t make any sense, a hole opening up into some foreign world. But it didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to go and smell the flowers.
I remember seeing rabbits. I think I used to have a pet rabbit once…
I walked and walked for what felt like hours until I saw them.
Four figures in the distance.
My captors.
They looked like nothing I’ve ever seen before. They were so tall, towering over me. Covered in some kind of brightly coloured fur. Such bright, unnatural colours. Bright green. Yellow. Red. Purple. Colours I’ve never seen on any animal before.
And their faces… oh their faces. Wide, grotesque smiles. Large, empty eyes staring into nothingness. Their noses, subtle points on their faces, lacked much definition. Some form of antenna-like structure protruded from their heads, each one bearing a unique shape.
Their large, ovular ears twitched at my approach. I stopped before them, in complete and utter awe. I knew that I should have been scared. That I should have been terrified. But I wasn’t.
They spoke amongst themselves in a language I couldn’t understand. I’d catch a familiar word here and there between the gibberish, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying.
Strange screen-like objects adorned their mid-sections.
Suddenly, after what felt like hours but was probably mere minutes, the purple one turned to me. He was the largest, sporting a triangular antennae on his large head.
“Come.” He said to me in a commanding voice.
“Come. Come” echoed the other three. I obliged, no longer in control of my own legs. Of my own body. Of my mind.
What happened next is foggy. I remember laying on a cold table. The four faces of my captors peering down at me.
Then all I remember is pain. Pain pain pain. Knives slicing through my body. My skull being forcibly split in two. Darkness.
I’m most often visited by these memories in the form of nightmares.
Some of the nightmares are filled with pain and suffering. Others are filled with fear and uncertainty.
But the worst nightmare of all is my reality.
I don’t know what I am now. My body is gone, replaced with cold, blue metal. Where I once had arms and legs is now replaced with wheels covered in coarse brushes. My mouth is gone. Instead some large, plastic like trunk sticks out.
And my eyes. They’re so different now.
I remember when I first saw my reflection. I had awoken to find myself in some dome-like structure. I tried to walk, but the movement felt different. Felt wrong.
When I peered into the metallic surface of the dome and saw my reflection, I thought I must surely be dreaming. The blue cylindrical metal that now housed my consciousness. The bulging, goggle-like eyes that extended from my ‘face.’ My arms and legs, gone. My torso, gone. My face… gone.
I wanted to cry, but no tears would come.
I wanted to scream, to beg for someone to help me. But the only sound I could form was a sickening slurping, sucking sound.
I tried to run, but I couldn’t.
I tried to think back to how I got here. How I could escape. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even remember my name.
All I knew was pain and loneliness. And hunger. Such insatiable hunger…
Since my arrival here I haven’t seen the green hills or the beautiful flowers or the peaceful rabbits. I haven’t smelled the fresh air or felt the wind on my face.
Instead I spend my days scavenging for food in the dome. I drag my trunk across every surface of the dome, slurping constantly, uncontrollably. Forever cursed to clean up after my captors.
As I sit here reminiscing, one of my captors is feasting. The red one, the smallest of the bunch, gorges on some kind of pink sludge, hungrily gulping down bowl after bowl. She spills the sludge over the floor. I watch as she finally rises from the table and waddles over to her bed.
I hurriedly scramble over to the spilt sludge and slurp it down. It is thick and cold against my metal insides. I want to gag, but this metallic body does not respond.
My arm starts to itch. I look down at my arm, only to be reminded that it no longer exists. The itch intensifies, but I cannot relieve the sensation. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence for me, feeling my old body parts. My phantom body.
It’s agony.
I listen to the red one snoring away on her bed. I want to roll my body over to her and smother her with a blanket. I’ve tried it before, but it never works. It’s like my body is programmed to never inflict harm on my captors.
At most I can cause small inconveniences for them. Once I ate my green captor’s hat. A small act of revenge, but satisfying nonetheless.
It was in vain, though. My body wouldn’t keep it down. I tried to swallow the fabric down, but it kept coming up my long throat.
My captors laughed and laughed at my pathetic attempt at rebellion. “Naughty,” they called me. “Naughty naughty.” They know I’ll never escape them.
And they’re right. I don’t know how much time has passed. Maybe decades, maybe longer. Certainly years have passed as I suffer in this inhuman body. As I lay in agony, feeling the ghost of a body that was once there.
As each day passes I lose more and more of my former self. The good memories are rapidly being replaced by the bad ones.
I try in desperation to cling to what I once was.
Sometimes when I sleep, I hear a woman’s voice. She is calling to me, saying a name I no longer know. I don’t know who she is, but her voice is synonymous with love and care and safety. I want to run to her, to throw myself into her strong, warm arms. I long for the touch of another human being. To be embraced once again. To be loved.
But when I try to run towards her, my legs are cut off. My long, strong legs. I scream out, only for my voice to be replaced with slurping noises. I hear mocking giggles all around me. I try to lash out at them, but my arms are gone.
I am nothing. I am metal. I am a pet. A slave.
And so I close my eyes, and I pray that sleep brings me a rare moment of peace. A rare glimpse of my former self, of a life now gone. I pray to whatever god rules this world that I never lose myself entirely to this hell. I cannot bare the thought of only knowing pain and fear. Hunger and loneliness. Mocking giggles and soulless eyes. Of unending agony and darkness.
And so I rest. And I pray I never awaken.