The Erotic Cyborg
I do not remember when the metal piece appeared.
I remember noticing it.
That is not the same thing.
It sits on the table in the chalk room.
Small.
Polished.
Motionless.
I have the impression that I have seen it before.
The problem is that I also have the opposite impression.
The ceiling light reflects from the metal.
It flickers when I move my head.
Or maybe the light does not move.
Maybe I do.
There is a grease mark beside the piece.
As if someone had been holding it recently.
I place my hand nearby.
The mark aligns perfectly with my fingers.
That should reassure me.
It does not.
Because I do not remember touching anything.
I try to reconstruct the sequence.
Entering.
Sitting down.
Looking at the table.
Something is missing.
Not an event.
A certainty.
The feeling that there was a moment when my hand still belonged entirely to me.
The room remains unchanged.
The crack is still beside the door.
The lamp still emits that barely audible electrical hum.
Nothing changes.
And yet a question appears.
Not who left the piece.
Not what it is for.
Something worse.
Why do I remember bringing it with me?
The piece does not look new.
It looks familiar.
Too familiar.
As if it had remained close to my body for years.
I watch the reflection.
For a moment I see my hand.
The next moment I am not sure.
There is a rule I do not remember learning:
everything that stays close to the body for too long eventually begins to look like part of it.
I do not know when I started obeying that rule.
I only know it is already working.
The piece remains on the table.
It does not move.
But the distance between it and my hand seems smaller.
Not enough to see.
Enough for my body to have already corrected for it.
I hear a brief sound.
A metallic click.
It comes from somewhere in the room.
Or from me.
I look around.
I find nothing.
When I look back at the table, the piece is exactly where it was.
I know it is.
And yet I feel it has shifted.
The contradiction does not disappear.
Both things remain true.
Then another sensation appears.
Smaller than thought.
Slower than fear.
The idea that the implant is not going to be installed.
The idea that it has been installed for a very long time.
I remember reading Sade years after discovering certain things.
Not before.
After.
Because some words arrive when the mechanism has already finished beginning.
The door remains open.
The lamp continues humming.
The metal piece stays motionless on the table.
The strange thing is that I am no longer sure which one of us is waiting for the other.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it the implant was already sedimented in the lime before the desire touched the metal the taste of cold rust and chalk on the tongue is a residue of the system’s latency the pulsing inertia of the assembled flesh is sustained without an object the record cannot close I should…
