Make sure I am dead. Dead, dead. It would be a shame to replace me if there is a chance, I am still alive. It’s alright, you can look. I’m still beautiful, aren’t I? I may not be of any use to you right now, but it's not like that ever stopped you before. I still have potential, even though I’m tired. I need a fix. Can you fix me?
You dust off the pollen that was on my hood before prying my jaw apart. Is this what it is like going to the dentist? When they ask you, open wide! before drilling into your teeth with their dental appliances. I am afraid of sharp objects. I don’t want any scratches on me because I hear that would make me less valuable. Scars down my body would deem me unclean and unworthy. Will you be gentle with me?
Locate the battery and expose me to the elements. Happy that today is sunny and warm. I don’t think I would drown in the pouring rain, but I know you hate it. You feel around the edges of my core. It’s beating against the wall of the skeleton. Covered by the rim of my bones. You look at me with disappointment. An expression that I know all too well. This isn’t going to be an easy removal. Just you and me against the great unknown. But you’re not going to let a broken piece of junk like me stop you from getting me a new heart. Nah. You’re bolder than that. You just don’t want to rip me apart. At least not out here in the open because that’ll make you look like a monster. We don’t want that, now do we.
Unscrew the bolts that keep me together. Then remove the bars and push away the wires. It should be simple now. Simple. Everything has to be simple with you. The world is already shitty as it is. We all had to get through a crisis to find some sort of normal of where we used to be. Many of my friends had to endure the long months of silence. Not many of them survived the blistering sun or the bitterness of winter and had to scrape for broken parts. How I didn’t end up in the junkyard is another mystery.
This all started earlier today after you clocked out. Walking out of your work building, you made your way towards me. Sitting down on my comfy seats and fishing out your keys. Click, click, click. No dice. A silence so detrimental that you slammed your hands against my dash. I know you get like this, but this is the first time you struck me.
How dare I? Deciding to break down on the worst possible day. On a Friday of all days! This must have ruined your weekend. You were already having such a long ass week that I just have to make it worse. I decided to stop. I chose not to wake up today. It’s my fault. It’s not that I get tired too or anything. It’s not like I just needed to rest for once because I sit outside in the sun and the pouring rain while you sit all safe inside without a care in the world. No, I have to wait on you for hours until you decide to come back out. Go ahead, you can blame me. You always do. For everything. Don’t you?
My core is in such an inconvenient spot. Under a tight lip of my ribcage that it gets stuck every time you try to yank it out. How the hell are you supposed to do this? Someone had to put it in, so why is it so goddamn hard to pull it out?! You cough and you curse, the oil staining your fingers almost like black blood. Sweat pours down your face and you wipe it away with the back of your hand. It's hot for mid-April. The sixty-degree sun feels like a hundred-degree summer, causing you to chug down a bottle of water to sustain yourself while baking in the heat. You’re no use to me if you keel over from dehydration.
Listen to me. Oh, how the tables have turned. Me talking about how we are of use to each other. We have an odd relationship, you and me. You’re not a parent and I’m not a child, nor are we lovers or brothers and sisters. I am just a thing, and you are a person. I take you on many wanderlust adventures and you fill me up with mineral spirits. Then you leave me out in the rain on a lonely gravel road. Okay, I’ll shut up now. Just change me already…
You’re able to slip the battery through the little gap between my lungs and arteries. Is this what it’s like to be heartless? The literal term I mean. I no longer feel it beating against my ribcage. Well, it had stopped beating hours ago. There’s this cavity. A hole I cannot fill myself.
Maybe I had stopped caring a long time ago, when you decided that I wasn’t what you’ve always wanted. I first came into your care a few years ago when my previous caretaker could no longer provide for me. You promised you would take care of me. I thought we were going to be like Dean Winchester and his Impala from that one TV show you watched. He loved that car like it was his daughter. Always overly protective to the point I thought it was silly. Cause, I didn’t get the same treatment. I’m not your real daughter, so why should you treat me like one?
I am empty. My mouth is still gaping wide. You decide to take a ten-minute break. Surgery is a lot of work. A lot of stress. What if I don’t work once, you give me a new heart? What if I never wake up again? Are you going to replace all of me? Will I wake up abandoned in the middle of nowhere? Scared and alone. On my own with no place else to go. People would say you’ve said these things to me. About me. But of course, you wouldn’t say them to my face. That would also make you a monster. But sometimes I wonder if you think that. What would happen if you decided to just simply leave me?
You never asked me for what I wanted. What if I didn’t need fixing? What if I wanted to remain this useless piece of garbage sitting in the middle of a parking lot? You never once told me you were proud of me. Or thanked me for my hard work. This is my one chance of rebellion. You would disown me in a matter of minutes. But hey, it’s fine. Perhaps my next caretaker will melt my body into a bunch of aluminum cans. I will be spread across the country holding fizzling liquid sugar for folks to drink. There will be many hands holding me. Some will recycle me so I will become new again, others will crush me and leave to be swallowed by a poor beast and I won’t reveal myself until its bones are decomposed. Wait, maybe I don’t want that…I just want to be me again.
You return with a friend. He holds up another box. My new heart! It’s shiny and blue. All brand new. My last heart was black and old. It wasn’t as pretty as this one. Grimy and sickly. It needed replacement. I wait patiently as your friend shoves the battery into the empty hole. He reattached the wires and the bars, so it sits nice and snug under a metal blanket. He asks you to try to see if I will work. You nod and sit down in the front seat, feeling skeptical. I feel the keys turn in the ignition. A hum and a sputter shocked me awake. You sigh with relief and pat my dashboard.
Good girl. You whisper and I feel myself cringe.
Conditional love is better than nothing, I suppose.
You thank your friend, and we drive around, your arm leaning against the open window. You take me to see the beautiful water that runs along the highway. My new heart beats soundlessly as the birds follow us up the coast. They fly in the shape of an arrow while I thought about how long this would last. I missed this so much. I felt as though I had been dead for nearly a month. You brought me back to life. I should be thanking you. I won’t. I’ll just enjoy the view.