Back then, I remember, you and I went to a funeral. On a day made for a funeral. A gray day, with a rusty rain. Not bitter cold. But cold. 

It was a funeral for Furry Lewis. Old Memphis blues guy and you and I were there, and Dan, and Joan. Banjo Bob in wrinkled pants. And suspenders, with tennis racquets on them. 

Furry Lewis had a prosthetic leg but he didn’t always wear it. Dan said once, he was at Furry’s house, and Furry said to him, Boy fetch my leg out the closet.  

That story always made us laugh, but not that day. That day we bit the inside of our cheeks, and stood in a stale rain. Little Laura Dukes was there, all 84 pounds of her. Four foot nine, and as least as old as Furry. 

They lowered the casket into the ground, and Laura Dukes teetered up to that hole like a skeleton-child. She leaned over, looked into the ground and she was so frail.  

She waved. And said ‘bye, Furry. It stayed in our hair and…

The Westwood Motel is a mile from the city limits, and five miles from the prison in Rainsville. For the last three months, Room 19 has been home to a woman with long, dark hair, and a rose tattoo on her shoulder. 

Gina is dressed in jeans and a black, sleeveless top, and she wears a flat, gold chain necklace that she touches when she is nervous. She is here to be close to a prisoner in Rainsville. I am here for Sentience Magazine, and a story…

It's all a neverending series of actions,
not a means to an end,
but a door that leads to ten more.
When is it ever enough?
The coping mechanisms,
the workaholism,
the alcoholism,
the bursts of sensation-seeking that punctuate the robotic daily grind?
I'm half-human,
half-robot,
and each side is fighting the other, striving for…