Ed had had a lousy day. Work exhausted him and his replacements felt kinked and slow. It was obvious that he was well past the due date for maintenance. He looked at his right elbow, the cooling material slowly seeped out of the injury and crusted up around the edges. It looked like a lot like rust. Ed followed a simple philosophy: Either pay money he didn’t have for repairs or pay money he did to forget about them until the next night. Not a lot choices, not a lot of decisions; just the way Ed liked it. Go with the flow, let life happen around you, drift on the wakes of others.

He kept walking, a straight line from the front door of the factory he worked at. Ed doubted that he would have a job there by the end of the week. His failing body couldn’t keep up with the new guys and their new replacements. Some of these kids couldn’t be older than eighteen or twenty. Heck, the factory probably paid for their replacements. If I were younger, I’d jump at that opportunity. The new replacements were faster, better, smaller, like all good new technology. Not as durable, though. A by-product of the new softer, more flexible materials.

History tells us it all started with small parts. Fingers, ears, eyes. Then it was arms, legs, torso, head. Then everything else. I don’t exactly remember when the line was crossed, but somewhere along the way, we lost what made us what we were. We used to be fine machines of metal and wires and now, I guess, you’d call us Human.