You have an appointment today with doctor Davis at 12:30 standard time.
Liam pried his eyes open and stared up at his ceiling. His legs and arms pried him off his bed and sent him reeling into the bathroom. He looked at his reflection, he was thinner, his hair unwashed, the bags under his eyes deeper. He swallowed his meds, considered taking another, but resisted. Time for another day at work, then another meeting with his doctor.
The station got busy as usual, and no one paid attention to its singular janitor cleaning up the mess left by thousands upon thousands. Liam worked as usual, mechanically going through the motions of his job without a single coherent thought within his skull. He’d used to listen to music while he worked, but now he just let his mini-me entertain him. It was easiest that way.
The hours melted away, time no longer held any meaning for him, and so it all just slipped away into oblivion, each moment a repeat of a previous. He was alone again. There was a list you could search up labeled ‘friends’, but Liam had never met those people, never had an honest conversation with them. They could just be robots, programmed to keep him distracted, he had no way of knowing. Today there would be another doctor’s appointment, then Liam would finish his shift, eat some hyper-processed gunk, collapse in bed, and repeat it all over again.
Admit it! Your life sucks because of you and no one else! Own it! Take responsibility for it! Admit it!
“I admit it. If I had done something different, perhaps things wouldn’t have turned out this way.”
The time eventually came around for Liam to journey back to the medical center. He sighed, another painful trip to the doctor. The station swallowed him up and spat him into a train car, sending him down into the heart of the ugly city. The brutalist buildings of the medical center leered down at him, laughing, taunting as he crossed the plaza beneath their watchful gaze. The metal eyeball stuck in his skull was a pain, trying to hide their gazes, trying to tell him they were welcome and kind, that they weren’t menacing and judgmental. Lies, all of it.
Liam checked in and switched his eyeball off, audio cues would probably be enough. Liam sat down in a chair and it crunched beneath him, despite his declining weight. His eye socket itched, the metal stuck in it a foreign invader. He carefully took the eye out, it probably looked strange, ripping an eye out of his head, but he didn’t care. He fiddled with the metal object, feeling its cool metal curves.
Dr. Davis will see you now in room 101.
Liam got up and entered the room, resigned to his fate. Dr. Davis was waiting for him inside, a fake grin plastered carefully across his face, the metal clips in his mouth gleaming, his paper white hands folded carefully across his desk.
“Welcome in, please have a seat,” grinned the doctor, a ripple passing across his plastered expression when he noticed Liam’s empty socket, “Your eye… why are you holding it?”
“Does it bother you?”
There was a moment of hesitation from the doctor, “No.”
There was another moment of silence, then the doctor cleared his throat and began, “Well let’s get into it, shall we? I have the report from your mini-me here,” he said, tapping the unblinking metal eyes jammed into his face that were meant to connect to the very nerves that wound their way to his brain and trick them into believing he could see, “And it’s not looking good. These past few months you’ve been declining at an alarming rate.”
“I guess changin’ the dose can’t fix everything,” said Liam, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head.
“I suppose not, but I would like to get to the heart of this problem. I’m rather concerned for your own safety and sanity. We may need to take some more… drastic measures.”
“Uh-huh,” sighed Liam. He wasn’t really paying attention. The appointments were just a ritual, another part of his programmed schedule. It was probably the same for the doctor too. He’d had several since… but they hadn’t really gone anywhere.
“Based on previous conversations I would highly recommend a therapist, there seem to be some things you need to get out in the open.”
“I can’t afford one.” The same response he’d repeated countless times for countless things. He was tired of saying it, but some things would never change.
“I understand, but there are many more affordable options. Me-Tech has recently upgraded their therapist mini-me’s with new user adaptive technology.”
“I don’t want that ****. My eyeball’s bugging me enough as is.”
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“You need to listen to me! This is a serious matter!”
“All you ever do is peddle your wares and try to make me buy stuff! I’d sure be a lot happier if everyone wasn’t after my money!”
“Costs are inevitable, don’t be childish. This isn’t about that, this is about helping you!”
“You’re a con-man and a shill who makes a quick buck selling out their patients! You and everyone else! No one’s actually concerned with my health, with Andrew’s health, with anyone’s health! That’s all a bunch of lies to get me to fork over my hard earned cash!”
The doctor frowned, leaning back in his chair, taking his hands off the desk and folding them into his lap before speaking in a voice worn through and annoyed, “Your rapid decline has had me seriously concerned for your safety, Liam. I have been deliberating this for a while, but you just continue to refuse help and keep spouting deranged claims. I’ve decided to intervene and make a decision in your best interests for you. You need some more serious care, and I can’t provide it.”
“What are you saying?” Dread was building, the horrible feeling of being eaten alive.
“Well, for starters I’ve determined that eye replacement surgery would be wise. Seeing two different things at once constantly is bad for the state of your psyche. Don’t worry about cost though, Me-Tech has graciously covered it and in return you’ll get their newest prototype.”
“Don’t I get a say in this! Don’t you get that this is exactly what I want to avoid! I don’t want to be made into some machine, some Me-Tech slave!”
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“Do you honestly hear yourself sometimes? The ‘machine’, ‘slave’, it’s utter nonsense! I’m doing this to help you, and it won’t just be the eye either! You should rejoice, Me-Tech is generously going to take all your icky flesh bits, and get you fixed up, at no cost!”
“It’s not enough anymore is it?”
“What?”
“The visits to Beyond Humanity aren’t doing it anymore, are they? No matter how often, no matter how many times, it’s just not enough anymore. You need to buy something stronger, something that can keep the darkness at bay, so you’ve got to sell your patients to afford it!”
The doctor gritted his teeth, the metal clips ground together with an ear-wrenching scraping sound. His face wrinkled and contorted, veins began to bulge.
“This isn’t about me Liam! This is about you, so take some responsibility and—”
“Responsibility! This has nothing to do with that! I’m just being traded off to different parts of the system because you need money and Me-Tech needs guinea pigs! You porn addicted conman! You’re just another slave to this machine, another blind man groping around in the dark!”
The doctor sighed, “You’ve really lost it ever since that, that coworker of yours died.”
“He died.”
“Yes, and you need to stop making such a big deal out of it. It’s been months, you hardly even knew him! From what you’ve told me, it sounds like it was his own fault anyways!”
The words stung, flaying his heart, sparking a burning rage. Liam was incensed. How could someone be so callous?!
“You’re the one who told me that—”
The doctor raised his hand.
“You’ve never taken any initiative! You come to me screaming and crying, begging to be fixed, but don’t put in the slightest effort!”
“You’re my doctor!”
“Yes, but your mental instability requires a firm hand that neither of us can provide. I’m giving you over to someone who can!”
“Mentally unstable? Don’t you get it Doc!”
“Your two eyes have made you disillusioned with reality. The death of your acquaintance to drugs has made you feel like the world has failed you and is turned against you. You’ve completely lost it, believing you’re being hunted and enslaved by some ‘system’, when in reality Me-Tech can have you patched up and fixed in no time!”
“Doc! Don’t you get it! I don’t want to be replaced with a machine! I don’t want to keep downing pills and slaving to entertainment! I want to be seen! I want to be heard!”
“I can hear you just fine, and it’s clear that you’re not of sound mind.”
“Doc! I’ve got no one! I don’t want a line of code, I want a person! I don’t want to be alone, I want to know that someone actually cares! I don’t want to feel blind, I want a sense of purpose! I want hopes and dreams not built around keeping myself high on dopamine! I want someone who’s willing to hear, who’s willing to help! I want someone to actually listen when I say I want a world where people like me and Andrew aren’t abandoned to die! You’re my **** doctor, you’re supposed to be the one who listens to me, who cares!”
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“Liam, please listen to me, you’re clearly unwell, and I’m just trying to help you, as your doctor, and as your friend.”
“Friend? **** you, you’re no friend of mine! ‘Go out and socialize, that’ll fix you up,’ that’s what you’re always telling me, so where the **** are you! Some friend! What? You think the **** list labeled ‘friends’ means a **** thing! I—”
“Liam, please.”
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“Don’t you get it Doc! I don’t have a reason left for living anymore! I get up, work, eat, sleep, and repeat it all endlessly without hope. My only friend is dead because you didn’t care about his plight! I don’t need more machines, more chemicals, I need a reason to get up in the morning! Don’t you care how I feel? Does anyone!”
“That’s quite enough! You’ve had your say, now just listen to me!”
“Doc, please! How many do you think there are out there like me! Like Andrew! How many lost souls in need of guidance! What about you Doc, don’t tell me you haven’t felt it, the emptiness, the all consuming loneliness, the craving for humans that machines can’t quite replace!”
“Liam—”
“Please Doc, don’t sell us off, don’t sell off me!”
“Just take deep breaths, you’re going to be alright,” The doctor called for someone and Liam could hear their feet clomping down the hallway, heavy and inescapable. They were going to “fix” him, but what did it mean to live if he wasn’t himself? Did it just mean that he was already dead? There was no hope there, and like a rat cornered by a predator panic set in and pleaded for action.
“Now, just calm yourself and stay right there,” ordered the doctor, but in that instant Liam made up his mind and bolted. He fled down the hallway, bursting out of the building, shouts echoing behind him, but he didn’t look back.
Admit it!
The clips in his mouth tasted bitter so he spit them out and dashed onto a train.
Admit it!
His nose stung from the metal clip jammed in it, he tore it out, drawing blood
Admit it!
Wake. Work. Eat. Sleep.
He’d had enough. Liam had been ground down until there was nothing left.
Admit it!
Wake. Work. Eat. Sleep.
Liam stumbled through the port station like a madman. He ripped the clips out of his ears, the flesh rent and tore painfully, his torturous mini-me at last falling silent. Blood dripped down, staining his white clothes, marring his pale skin
Admit it! You have no reason to live!
Wake. Work. Eat. Sleep. That was not reason enough.
Liam walked out onto the bridge connecting the station to the upper parts of the city. The pavement was faded and cracked, the edges of the bridge rough and gravelly from a never installed railing, yellow tape serving as the only indicator that such a thing had ever been planned. The open air beckoned him. The empty void below called him to go. He slipped under the tape and looked down, a cleaning crew was down there, mopping up a mess, and for the first time Liam noticed what they were cleaning up.
It was a person. It had always been people. It might as well have been Andrew, another lost soul with no job, and no prospect for their future save the release of death.
Liam touched his left eye. It was real, an indelible part of him. Its warm curve pulsed with life beneath his touch. That eye was the last thing connecting him to another person, to his… son.
That was the word. There was another person out there, inexplicably connected to him, woven from much of the same basic building blocks of life. He had never talked to this person, never held them in their infancy, never met them, never even seen them, and yet half of them was carved from his own flesh and blood. They would be old enough now to decide for themself whether or not they wanted eye replacement surgery, Liam hoped they had kept their original eye. It didn’t matter now though. That eye would be taken from him, his last fundamentally human connection that no machine could replace, and he would be left completely and utterly blind.
What did it mean to live? If you couldn’t answer that question, were you already dead? What was the point of trying so hard? Of working hard? Of continuing to exist, when you had no reason to? What was the point of racking up the sleepless nights, of counting every penny, when it mattered not whether you woke up the next day? Liam had no purpose in the world anymore. They’d already used him to craft another human, leaving him without even the slightest most basic justification for his worthless existence.
Liam teetered on the very edge of the bridge. The air was poorly ventilated and stale, but he could feel it, touch it, taste it, hear it, see it. He could step back and return to pointless monotony until he could move no more, or he could set himself free.
The cold metal of his right eye burned in his hand. He’d forgotten all about it, but it was still clutched in his sweaty palm. He raised it up to the light, inspecting it, the graceful metal curves, the intricate machinery, the nerve connections. Liam extended his arm out over the yawning abyss that beckoned him, and let the glittering eye drop.
