Citizen Sleeper January #1: The Sleeper // Mind & Body
Written for the Citizen Sleeper Prompt January challenge
Prompt: The Sleeper // Mind & Body
Sometimes I wonder if humans can feel their blood pumping through their veins.
Can they feel their arteries and veins ever so slightly expand and contract with each heartbeat, as blood is pumped through their body, to the organs, back to the heart?
Or is there a sensation of warmth, where each thump, thump of their chest is connected to a flush of warmth in their feet, as they stand in the cold?
Or is it even more visceral? Can they feel each smallest millimetre of blood vessel filled and emptied and touched by blood, like a thousand pin-prick-sized fingers in a gentle stream?
I’d imagine it would be quite ticklish.
I try to remember, but my memories are not much help. I can’t seem to recall any sensation, no sensory memory that would fit. But my memories are also untrustworthy. My emulated mind holds few true recollections of what it was like to be a human. Especially when it comes to my body. There was simply no space. And no necessity. Like with breathing. I remember needing to breathe. I still reflexively hold my breath when in the vacuum of space. I still have the urge to open my mouth and suck something in. But I believe… I believe that is the action, I recall. I recall sucking in air through my nostrils. I remember gasping for air after reaching the safety of my rig after my suit malfunctioned. But I don’t remember the air itself. I don’t remember if I felt it in my lungs. It is like a blackout. Breathe in, breathe out, but in between, just nothing. At least breathing can be a conscious choice. Your blood pumps, regardless.
I look at my hand. The synthetic skin stretches over the gears as they whir silently with each turn and adjustment. The skin stretches and barely fits over my fingers. There is one part, between my right thumb and pointer finger, where the skin is stretched so far that it becomes translucent. Underneath, you can see the hinges, the cables, and the tubes. Slowly pumping. I’ve come to love that spot.
I can feel the tubes. Feel the cooling liquid slowly siphoning generated heat from my appendages to ensure peak efficiency. It was a simple design decision. Delicate movements in my hands create excess heat through friction. This heat is brought to my core, where a generator recycles it to supply other units placed in my body. It is a simple construction to minimise energy loss in a semi-closed system. It is, like all of me, inspired by human biology.
I wonder if humans feel the same. I want them not to. Just because, for all the imitation, I want something unique.
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