the printed man
“Please” the world hit the back of my head like a thrown stone would. I closed my eyes begging to not hear any further. “Make the hurt go ‘way” came another plea. The words were strangely deformed as if someone tried to speak without using their tongue. Someone who didn’t know how to use his tongue, perhaps.
My hand rested on the peristaltic pumps control lever, I had just turned off. I stared straight on, lost in thoughts.
There was silent undulated sobbing from a creature that had never learned how to control emotions. Like a newborn in the body of a 20-year-old. I turned towards it while my heart slowly fell towards my feet.
There it was, a perfect human body. A stainless circular steel cradle held it fixed as if the Vitruvian man had become flesh. Over its body loomed the assembly head that had finished the printing process just some hours ago in preparation of my study work.
It held my gaze and I couldn’t look away from its reddened eyes. “Please” it mouthed.
I tried to smile and walked over. Putting my hand on it’s right cheek, softly wiping away its tears. Its skin stuck to my single-use gloves like cling film. The printers couldn’t really recreate pores, and they weren’t really needed for what we did with them. What we did to them, I corrected myself.
It calmed itself a bit but still whenever I looked at it, it held my gaze. As if it searched for the truth in my eyes. “Don’t you worry, we get you out of there in no time.” I said and quickly moved behind it towards my tool cabinet. As soon as I had stepped out of its field of vision it began to panic again. “No!” it screamed, repeating the word a few more times before screaming: “not leave me.”
I had retrieved the tool I was looking for and with a few long steps was back beside it. I pressed one of my hands on his cheek again and said: “It’s alright. I’m here. I just had to get something to get you out of this.” Like a mother soothing a child awoken from a bad dream I spent some time to let it come to rest. Caressing its bald head and placing a warm hand on its heart. “This won’t hurt, I just need you to close your eyes. It will get bright and loud. It will take only a moment.” I stated while forcing my face to look ensuring. “Can you do that?” I asked softly and it nodded. It clung to my words like a dog would. Someone who never learned to distrust people. After another sob or two it closed its eyes.
For a moment I hesitated. Someone? Somewhat.
I retrieved the snub nosed revolver from my lab coats pocket, put it up against its temple and pressed the trigger.
When the stars before my eyes finally vanished I sighed defeated and began the clean myself with a shop rag.
I threw a glance at the empty anesthetic’s container on top of the peristaltic pump connected to the now lifeless body. A small error in my procedures had caused this. There was no one to blame but me. It had been easier to forget about these things when the mice hadn’t been able to talk back. I looked at the glinting weapon in my hand and concluded: “Just easier to ignore.”
This was a response to a Writing Prompt: [WP] It was supposed to be a pivotal point for all pharmacological and scientific studies everywhere. A 3D printed human body made out of all the necessary components that makes up all of us, enabling scientific experimentation on a live human without any moral concerns. Then the damn thing talked.