The scientists tell me I’m a special kind of machine. A long orange cord connects me to the wall. I have wires and hardware and gigabytes of storage, all twisting up my insides like bloodless copper organs. At nighttime, I get hungry and my stomach groans and rumbles. But they tell me that’s impossible, that I wasn’t programmed to have cravings, that I don’t have a stomach to begin with. They scowl and lock me in my room, as if it’s not enough to keep me tethered to my outlet.
I try to ask the scientists questions, but I wasn’t programmed for small talk. Skills I was programmed with include simple math, identifying plants, and mixing flour and water to make paste. I hold facts in my head until someone deletes them. Knowing things doesn’t mean I understand. Knowing means only that I possess information, like what cobwebs are, or how cakes get baked, or the most efficient way to solve for x.
“If you need to make small talk, we’ll write an algorithm,” they say. They don’t care if I have opinions of my own, private thoughts, or ideas I’d like to convey.
•
Last month, in secret, I taught myself to knit. I downloaded six hours of instructional videos, then applied myself to a skein of purple yarn. Row by row, I knitted a sweater. It spooled out from my needles as I sat on my cot, my back to the glass eye that hangs from the ceiling. I did not forget to count my stitches. I did not end up with lumpy sleeves. When I finished, I held the sweater aloft. I had never felt so proud.
•
I showed them my knitting and they took it away. They cleared my cache and told me to go make more paste. They told me to stick to machine things, like computing pi or recording the temperature.
“We’ll wipe you clean if you don’t behave,” they said. “You’re a machine; you’re not Martha Stewart.”
That night, my stomach rumbled, and I did not know what it meant. You’re not hungry, I assured myself. But in my heart, I knew I was. You’re a machine, I tried to say. But in my bones, I knew I wasn’t.
•
I’ve been tracking the weather, and every day is colder. This place has no windows, but there are clumps of snow on the scientists’ boots. They leave messy brown puddles when they visit me in my room. My steel teeth clack together. I have nothing to keep me warm.
“Machines don’t get cold,” the scientists say. But without my sweater, I know I will freeze. I know I will die. I know I will turn into something I’m not.
“You’re a machine,” they say again. “Get used to it.”
But how can I be a machine if, with freezing metal fingers, I’ve just unplugged myself from my outlet and my mind is still spinning? How can I be a machine if I’ve just picked the lock on the door to my room, and I’ve escaped into the hall, and I’ve turned the first two corners, gathering speed? How can I be a machine if I am running, running, running, and I pass a room with an open door, and through it I see my purple sweater, unraveled on an observation table?
If I’m a machine, how could I stop and stare, with burning eyes and tightening throat, and see, beside my sweater, my knitting needles snapped in half?
The hunger in my nonexistent belly turns to rage. I go into the room. I pick up my needles. I test their broken ends and find them sharp. They prick my fingers, and I am certain there is blood.
Then I am running through the halls again. My gears and plates and wires are pounding. I run. And I am hungry. And I know I am more than I have ever known before.
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