He sat before his workbench, looking at his heart lying on the workspace before him. The steel mechanism that sustained his life lay open like a book, hinge at the back, clasp at the front (currently undone), gears and other clockwork mechanisms turning and clicking rhythmically in time. Electrodes extended from the device in his open chest cavity and tied into his central nervous system somewhere; he didn’t exactly know where, and it didn’t really matter. Several tubes of varying length wove in and out of the heart and back into his chest, as well, pumping blood and other fluid throughout his body.
Here was the thing that kept him alive. It didn’t pump, at least not in the traditional sense. It wasn’t a muscle the way an organic heart was, so there was no visible contraction and expansion to keep the life-giving fluids moving throughout the device and, by proxy, his body. Rather, gears and servers turned around each other, driving pistons and plungers to create pressure and vacuum in regularly alternating sequence. All this to draw fluid into the mechanical heart — then to push it back out again.
He stared at the massively complex device, observed all the tiny pieces turning and ticking and pumping in unison, in perfect sync with one another. He had already examined it closely, light and magnifying glass in hand, and could find nothing out of place, nothing worn out, nothing broken or bent or in any other way functioning in a manner other than what it should.
He frowned, troubled. Why then did this device cause him such pain? Always, it was a dull ache inside his chest, but at times it would escalate to a pain so sharp, so piercing, that he could barely stand it. At first, the pain terrified him. He was certain something was wrong, that he was dying. And then, when he did not die, he became more and more certain that something must be wrong with the device itself, that it must be malfunctioning in some way. He had already examined it multiple times over the last weeks and months, certain he had missed something crucial. Each time he had come away without answers.
The heart was in perfect working condition. But of course, deep down he had known this. It was built to last a lifetime. It would perform for years still with nary an issue, sustaining his life and carrying him through many more years to come.
Why, then, did it ache so? Why did it often stab him through the chest just as surely as being pierced by a sword?
He sighed and closed up the heart, securing the clasp firmly in place once more. He seated the device back into his chest where it belonged, wrapping electrodes and tubing around it properly to maintain connection and continued flow. He would have to continue to carry on in spite of the pain. He knew enough about his heart to examine it and make minor adjustments — but not enough to alter it to the point where it no longer caused discomfort.
He sat a moment longer, breathing slowly, feeling the rhythm of the steel heart within his chest performing its work. That dull ache remained, as usual, and there was nothing he could do about it. He could only hope that, with time, the ache would go away on its own. After all, it hadn’t always been there. So it was just possible that, given enough time, it would disappear just as mysteriously as it had come. That was fine. He was strong enough to handle it, even when the pain became acute and sharp enough to bring tears to his eyes.
He would go on living because, really, what else was there for him to do?
