Upon awaking, he refused anesthetics. Pain was the only sovereignty he retained over his body, as bits of him lay rotting in a biohazard container.

The stitches pulled too tightly and tore his skin at the edges, not that anyone would notice tomorrow. By then the incision and resulting scar would have healed, faded, leaving no memory of the trying times that preceded them. He wanted to remember everything, right through the din of crashing metal and bright lights. How her eyes darkened, then hollowed, sentience never to return.

A hard lump formed, this time in his throat. If conscious, he could have refused the synthetic organ transition. This affair with technology will make cyborgs of us all, he thought bitterly.

Though the cell cluster within it would have reproduced interminably, that now irrecoverable organ never could have made him a father. Testicular cancer. He never told her.

Funny, he thought, that balls of steel didn’t bring more levity to the situation.