I'm trying to recall my younger self one hundred and ten years ago, but it’s difficult to see through all of the scars, the medication, the hospital visits. I know I was healthy, something that seems like a wishful dream these days. I can fuzzily recall high school, even some of the girls I dated to some degree. Most of them are long gone. A pity.

I remember, with a lot more clarity mind you, when they offered me an opportunity to switch out my body for a biomechanical one. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be digitized and get crammed into a perfect, fully functional body after suffering from so many debilitating diseases? They made the offer because it was cheaper for the government to maintain androids than it was to take care of human organs that degenerated more and more.

I was one of the first to get “migrated” as they call it. At first, everything was amazing. Heck, I even got aroused for the first time in decades when the nurse came around to give me a sponge bath

Then I realized something.

I felt the same way. My knees hurt. My hands felt like they were in pain from arthritis. My back hurt, and when I stood up I was still hunched over.

When I finally got to talk to one of the doctors, I found out something they neglected to mention. My brain was digitized as it was. It was trained over the years to accept and to adapt to the limitations of my aging body. My android form was perfect, but my brain forced it to go back to the old ways. And now I’m ageless, possibly immortal, with the body of a young man and with the ruined brain of an old, broken down human just shy of dying.

Immortality is for the young, but the ancient ones will push themselves to the front of the line and suffer for the rest of their unnatural lives. And I say, we deserve what we got.

Iron Noder 2017

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