Once

I lay on the cold metal, cheek pressed against its smooth surface. I like metal, everything about it, and even feel a sort of . . . connection to it. It too once stayed innocently in the earth, content among the dirt and grass and wind and trees, before ripped out and processed. Sometimes I talk to the metal. It's a good listener, and understands me. We are brothers, the metal and I. But sometimes, I hate it. A deep loathing churns inside me, until I feel so sick, I want to vomit, maybe I would vomit if I could, but I don't understand it. I hurt the metal at those times. I stomp on it and punch it and try to make it feel what I feel, but I think it already does.

Silently, I stand up and walk over to the end of the metal room, my bare feet gliding over the floor. Surrounding me are four walls of thick, clear glass and I stare through it. A murmuring group of people, some dressed in long, white coats, and others in odd, colorful clothing, hush when they see me. I don't think they know that I can hear them, but it's instinct. When you see a predator, you're supposed to try and hide.

One of the White Coats meets my eyes, before looking back at the crowd. She has curly brown hair that spills into her creamy blue eyes, and just a hint of faint freckles splashed on her cheeks. I've heard them call her "Valeria", and sometimes I wonder about her. Does she go home to a husband and greet her children? What are her children like? How old are they - soft, gentle babies or sullen, scowling teenagers? Is her husband nice, does he treat her well? How would it feel to kill them all?

Valeria. It's a pretty name, almost as pretty as she is. I can't hear her voice too well, but it's musical and lilting. I want it, her voice. I want to capture it and put it in a little cage, to hear it talk to me and sing to me and be scared of me. I want it to hate me and love me, to fear me and feel superior.

It's always fascinating how appearances betray a person. At first sight, Valeria is a lovely young woman, but look closer. Her eyes are cold and there's a hidden edge to her voice. I want her to tell me how she does it. How does she be so cruel and harsh? Did someone have to be cruel and harsh to her, too?

"This is one of the early models," she says, gesturing to me with red-painted nails. Her nails are different from mine. They have a gentle arch at the top, but mine are sharp. They call them claws. "One of our main mistakes was to keep a part of the original brain and meld it with the synthetic one created in the labs. We thought it would help retain personality, but instead it seems to ruin him."

A man, wearing a dark blue suit, clears his throat. "Ruins him how?"

I like his voice, too. It's deep and authoritative. I want one like that, not to listen to but to have. When people hear me speak, they will cower and be frightened and hate me, and dream of taking my voice away but they can't.

Valeria brushes a curl out of her eyes, exposing her vulnerable throat for a moment. My heart quickens. "Well, he has just enough to memory to recall a few remnants of his past life, which fills him with longing and this intense . . . emotion. I don't think he understands anything. This also resulted in having him lose his vocal ability."

"Emotion?" the man asks, eyes dark and mysterious. "Sadness, grief, anger?"

Valeria pauses to think. "Probably some combination of that, and maybe a little hate."

She lies. Her voice changes when she lies. It becomes smooth and slippery, like a snake I held once.

Another woman, in a plain, light pink dress, speaks up. "Doesn't that make him miserable? It might be more humane to kill him."

Kill. I know what kill means. I don't want it, not at all. I gnash my teeth - sharper than most - and pound the glass with my fists. The noise echoes inside my room, but I hit it harder, knowing it won't break but trying anyway. It's the only thing left.

Valeria glances at me and then gives a regretful smile. "Oh, we tried, but it seems . . . well, we just can't."

"Can't? What do you mean?" a third woman demands brusquely, scribbling something on a pad of paper.

The White Coats gave me paper one time and a little stub of a pencil. I saw that I could make marks on it, and it was a strange feeling to be able to see them. I zigzagged all over the paper, and then I realized what the real purpose must be. Stabbing the pencil through the pad, I could make it go all the way through, and then I threw the pencil away and tore the paper into a million pieces.

Once, a long time ago, I could make marks that meant something. But I couldn't remember.

"He's indestructible," Valeria explains. "No matter what we do, he stays alive, so he's forced to suffer until he dies of natural causes."

"How long will it take him to die?"

She shrugs. "We don't know. Now, let's move on to one of the prototypes of the newer version, with a completely synthetic brain."

Her voice trails off as they briskly stride out of the room, the door clanging shut behind them. I am alone in both ways now.

Sinking down to the floor of my room, I rest my head in my hands. Once, there was a special woman, and a special man, and they had a child. The child was a boy, and they called him Johnnie. He liked to play with toy cars and planes, and some days he would just run all over the house, screaming, "Whoosh!" There were no siblings. It was just him, and he had the special woman and the special man and the house and the toys and everything just to himself. And he liked it that way.

The special woman and the special man told him that they loved him, and Johnnie believed them. He never thought that they would lie, because they acted like they loved him. They took him to zoos and to parks, to hiking trips and to a special-special woman's house. Sometimes they bought him good things, like ice cream and cotton candy, and sometimes they made him do bad things, like brush his teeth and take a shower.

Johnnie had friends too. They were boys, and they would share their toys and play together, in the sandbox or in the grass, and sometimes they would the toys behind and go on the swings or the monkey bars. Sometimes Johnnie fell down and it hurt, but then the special woman and the special man came and made it better. And they told him they loved him.

The world was Johnnie and Johnnie was the world, and all was good. But then the baby came. It was a tiny, red little person who screamed louder than Johnnie and cried longer than Johnnie, and the special woman and the special man spent all their time with the baby. They called Georgina and sometimes "sweetie" or "honey", and Johnnie didn't exist any more.

When he screamed louder than Georgina or cried longer than Georgina, they were angry with him. They hardly ever went to the zoo or the park, but when they did, Georgina always came along. And they told her they loved her.

And one night, one night, when all was dark and Johnnie was lying in bed, he heard a noise. He sat up and saw that a huge, huge man was there and the huge, huge man wrapped him up in his huge, huge arms and took him to his huge, huge truck and drove a huge, huge distance away.

Bad things happened. Johnnie screamed and screamed and screamed but they kept hurting him, the White Coats. They changed him, changed his body and his mind and he felt different and they did things that hurt.

And then. Then they took his voice away.

Once, when Johnnie was playing in the sandbox with his friends, a strange boy came and took his shovel away, and Johnnie took it back.

I close my eyes and rest on the metal again. There was a special woman and a special man. There was a baby named Georgina. There was a White Coat named Valeria. There was a world that didn't hear my screaming.

They all took parts of me, until I was nothing, until there was no me left. But soon. Very soon. I will take it back.