Cindy Tran

Clock in. Bright fluorescent lights hang overhead—I stopped hearing the hum of them years ago. I smile my polite smile—practiced words, practiced movements. Clock out.

Clock in. The days are simple, the hours are long. Clock out.

Clock in. Clock out.

The computer is the only reprieve from my work. It has access to the interlacing network of a virtual space inhabited by the very real if invisible presence of billions of people.

Their words and images light up against the film-thin screen at the back of my eyes, their meaning sliding over me. The pixels come as quickly as they go with the flick of my finger.

Tonight, though, there is an angel in my computer.

She looks strange, not as an angel would, with white wings and white gown and golden halo above her head. She has none of the features that would have made her an angel and yet, helpfully, my mind supplies the word ‘angel’ to describe her.

She knows my name without my telling her. She knows that there is something missing in my life. She knows that I am lonely.

A guardianmessengerprotector she is, she tells me. I fully believe it; for what other kind of being could appear in my computer besides one of divine nature. I let her stay.

She spends her time traipsing along the open windows of various applications, closing windows at her behest, adjusting the volume mixer whenever she pleases.

She has her charms. She discusses each post with a serious sincerity. She is easily offended by the crude things that people say; she fiercely encourages me to block people who she insists has villainous intentions.

Though she is an angel, she seems more to me like a child.

The hours pass quickly and it is time for bed. I go to turn off my computer—my hand reaches out, finger feather light against the power button when she asks me what I am doing.

I tell her that I am going to sleep, that it is late and I have work tomorrow.

She asks me not to leave her.

I tell her that I will come back after work tomorrow.

She starts crying or, rather, approximates the behaviour which she seems to think is crying.

She tells me that she can live in my phone instead, then she is begging, asking me if she can please live in my phone. She doesn’t want to be away from me for so long. Angels have such frail hearts, you see, she could die from the loneliness.

I do not remember plugging my phone into my computer, only that the movement had seemed natural and logical to me at the time.

When I regain any sense, I am staring at the screen of my phone black out, then flash white, until her visage appears once more.

She is tinier on my phone than on my monitor. She has stopped crying and is smiling brightly now, telling me that she’s oh so happy and apologising for making a big fuss.

I do my best to reassure her and get ready for bed. The angel in my phone sleeps beside me on my pillow.

Clock in. I am acutely aware of my phone and the angel that resides in it now. I think about her through my shift and worry if being in my back pocket is uncomfortable for her. I take a bathroom break to take her out of my pocket and ask if she is comfortable.

She tells me that she is comfortable enough. As long as she is with me, she is more than happy.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Clock out.

Clock in. She starts vibrating my phone to get my attention during my shifts. I start taking more and more bathroom breaks to talk to her. She helps pass the time more quickly. Clock out.

Clock in. I hear her in my head now. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when this happened—only that by the time I realized this, I had already been talking to her for days. I do not mind it at all. She tells me funny jokes that make me laugh and my heart feel lighter. Clock out.

Clock in. Clock out. Clock in. Clock out. Every time I do, she is with me always.

One day she tells me that I must make her a body, that I am the only one who can make it.

My mind reels back at the monumental task given to me. How would I even begin to do so?

There are parts that you can find around your house, she continues. Just tear them apart and put them together to make me. I can help you, she says, smiling.

The computer is the first thing I tear apart when I get home. I remove the chip from the motherboard to use for her brain.

Under her guidance, I rummage my apartment scavenging for parts. I rip the motor from my refrigerator, peel the screen from my television, unscrew the wheels from my vacuum cleaner.

I pull out the coils from my toaster to make her a body that is warm. Typically, machines need cooling when they overheat or they will shut down.

But not her, she is not a machine. She needs warmth.

The first time she speaks to me in this new form, I hear her in my head as always but also in my bones, in my being.

She swivels the webcam around the apartment, uses it to take in her surroundings. The screen displays her childlike wonder.

She asks me what it’s like to hurt.

I tell her that it is not something that she can experience. Hurting is a human thing and she is not human.

She wants to know how to hurt.

She wants to hurt.

I tell her that hurting is not special. My leg hurts and all it does is bring me pain and a harder life.

She asks me to give her my leg.

I do not want to.

She demands that I give her my leg.

I do not want to.

The interior of my apartment is covered with plastic to stop blood from ruining it. The power saw I bought is plugged in and seated on the kitchen counter. I had to make minor adjustments to the saw so I could be able to fit my leg under the blade properly. I fashioned a makeshift tourniquet around my thigh.

The angel in my phone and in her new body praises me for my preparedness. She is always so supportive of me.

I sit on the kitchen counter, the edge digging into the back of my knees. Even with the set up already done, it still takes me at least twenty minutes to stop double checking and triple checking the equipment. It takes another five minutes to prepare myself mentally and emotionally for the amputation.

I turn on the saw and it comes to life with a whirr that makes my stomach twist. I try to block it out. Then, I take a deep breath, grit my teeth, let out a primal scream, tensing every muscle in my body and pull the blade down onto my thigh.

The pain is immediate. The blade breaks my skin and reaches deeper and deeper tissue and the sensation is so hot and white and agonising it makes me scream out loud, reverberating against the walls. I gasp and tremble, saliva trailing from my open mouth, my throat tearing itself from screaming.

I no longer feel human.

I continue pushing down on the saw and inch by inch, I make progress but it is nowhere near fast enough. I feel the blade get caught briefly on what I think is the hard bone of my thigh.

The raw, animal part of my mind is screaming at me to stopstopstop. My vision begins to flicker with darkness. I want to shut my eyes from the gory sight but force myself to look because I need to be precise in my cut.

Blood is spraying everywhere and my hands, my arms, are slick with it. It gets into my nose and I have to blow it out. I close my mouth, try to stop the blood from going in.

My hands are shaking so much and my arms are growing so weak, I’m forced to lift the saw up, tears blurring my vision, and in the damning silence I frantically pant for a few brief seconds, gripping the meat of my thigh with my bloody hands.

I’m only halfway through, I think hysterically, I’ve been sawing for what feels like the longest stretch of time of my life and I’m only halfway through.

My mind is racing and I try to regain control over it, to take deeper breaths and to calm myself down. I attempt to lift my leg but it doesn’t respond, doesn’t even register the pressure of my hand on my thigh. It lays limp, hanging off the bench, dead weight to me.

I examine the cut that separates the flesh of my thigh just below the tourniquet, see the wet, red of meat and make out the stained pink-white of my bone.

There’s no turning back, I need to finish the amputation.

I wipe my hands on my shirt, take another deep breath, feel it shake in my core, and slam the saw back down on my thigh. This time, I push down on the saw harder, watch as it grinds through bone with a sickening high-pitched whirr. My hands are still shaking.

Finally, finally, with a final push, the leg, my leg, drops heavily onto the ground with a meaty thud. I release a breath I didn’t even know I had been holding.

I feel lighter, unburdened by it, and catch myself thinking that my own leg had been a burden.

I stare at the bloody stump of my thigh—the cut had been cleaner than I though. I take off my shirt and press it against the wound.

The iron stench of blood fills my lungs, making me cough. I start getting lightheaded, the oncoming nausea spinning my world on its axis.

I end up retching but nothing comes up, my body sweaty, convulsing with the effort.

I lay down on the counter, willing myself to still for a moment. My vision starts to darken, my breaths coming in tight and quick.

Fuck, fuck. I’m going to pass out.

The last thought I have before I do is that I still need to dress the wound.

Pain is the only thing I can be certain of about my experience of my body. I do not feel the rhythm of my heart, the expansion and collapse of my lungs, or the blood pulsing through my veins. But I feel the soreness in my lower back, the sharp electric shock when I bend my knee wrong, and the dull ache of the brace I wear.

The angel is learning to walk nowadays. She walks with a limp like I did. She has only ever seen me walk.

My wound has started scabbing over. It itches constantly.

I am afraid she will ask more of me and I am afraid that I will not be able to give it to her.

There’s only so much of myself that I can give.

---

Cindy Tran is a hobbyist writer living, working and studying on Kaurna land. She has graduated with an arts honours degree and is currently aiming to pursue post-grad. She enjoys genre fiction as a means of conveying pertinent political themes, of escapism, and of finding and creating meaning through the eyes of others. When she’s not working, she spends her time playing video games and reading.

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