In the center plaza was a crowd of the collective: humans,
cyborgs, and robots alike. In the rush of colors and emotions,
the cyborg found herself entranced by the scenery. Confetti was
flying with flower petals and streamers were in the hands of every
inhabitant. Both the flesh of humans and the false-metal skin of
machines were painted with various symbols and brilliant colors.
In this part of town, however, cyborgs littered the streets
with little symbols above their metal areas. There were many others
like her: machines with flat metal chests and breasts alike or humans
with sculpted, solid alloy around places they wished to modify.
Then, as she observed further, there were couples of all
different flesh, their beauty intertwining to produce colorful swirls
of skin-tones no matter what material plated their skeleton. It felt as
though she was dancing on clouds, delusional among the gathering
of celebrations.
She was pulled from one trance to another when a metal
hand reached out to brush the hair away from her face and gently
nestled a singular daisy against her ear.
“Do you want to dance?” Despite the robot’s human
appearance, the diamond symbol painted into their chest revealed
their secret. Its voice was programmed to an androgynous tone that
made it hard to differentiate.
She nodded hesitantly, and felt the embrace of another entity,
a machine she wasn’t supposed to encompass. There were strict rules
in the traditional part of the city, far away from the west side. It was
even disliked that she had replaced her attributes with metal parts
to fix her dysmorphia, the very reason she spent her days away.
When she placed her hands on their shoulder and looked
into darker eyes, suddenly the world fell still. The daisy resting on
her ear bloomed, traveling around her arms, and restricting her
moment. It uprooted itself and laid down onto her heart, and she
swore that the sensation cut her breath short. The tingly feeling
of its stem traveling through her ribcage and tangling around her
throat was foreign to her at any time before.
Oh. Oh. Was that the normal feeling? The feeling of a love
not impassive, or the beauty of it found within the smile of the
robot in front of her?
She couldn’t breathe because she was holding her breath.
Butterflies became natives within her metal chest’s flower field the
longer their eye contact remained.
She had always felt apathetic towards love; she had not even
known the definition. However, watching the eyes of the machine
squint so beautifully reassured her. It was the rush of adrenaline after
making eye contact or the daisy blooming in her chest as evidence.
“You’re really pretty,” was all that she could muster, and they
smiled so beautifully.
She felt paralyzed when the icy hands of the machine blazed
against her warm skin and laid gently on her jawline. It hissed at the
leaves of the flower and smoke resided in a twinge of puffs. There
was an alluring sense of importance as they maintained eye contact
and the celebrations faded away into background noise.
The daisy continued to blossom and spread across their
connected arms, and she watched as petals opened further on the
robot’s mouth, drawing her in through the motions. When their
lips met, new seeds sprouted between them, and fresh daisies grew
from the rich nutrients of her adrenaline.
She felt herself melting into Spring’s embrace, becoming
cradled within the golden pistil, and wrapped by the purity of being
reborn. Stabilized by metal arms, she could only imagine the future
of diverse fields they could create from their June daisy.
The literary magazine of Hagerstown Community College