Overhauled Again

Thanks to everyone for having a look at that piece that I put up the other day. I got some really good feedback, and have made a couple of changes and polished it up a fair bit. I think it's working much better now, anyway!

If anyone hasn't read the copy I sent them yet and still feels like giving it a go, let me know and I'll send the newer version, if you like!

I'm rather excited about this piece, actually, it's probably the best thing I've written since my Fiction classes last year. For some reason, even though I've only read a modest amount of sci-fi, the ideas for such stories always stay with me for a while. Interesting, eh?

Thanks again for feedback! Let me know if you want to look at the new one!

Here's a bit more of an excerpt:

Had he the sensory upgrade required, William would have been assailed by the stench that flooded the morgue. Vern, the ship’s reluctant mortician, had a cloth clamped tightly to his nose and mouth. His fat cheeks were red from the effort of attempting to survive without breathing in and his floppy blond hair once again escaped the comb-over that he orchestrated each morning with a great deal of ceremony.

‘WIL544, there you are.’ His rusted voice almost made the serial number into a name. ‘Strip the body and begin, hmm?’ Vern slipped aside his cotton mask for as long as it took to sneak a sip out of his dull metal hip-flask. His eyes were bright with the fortification.

‘Order acknowledged,’ said William in a monotone, moving to where the corpse lay on a smooth metal trolley. A crate gone awry, he surmised. The body, a young man in his twenties, perhaps, had been crushed by something unusually heavy, hence the shattered left leg and pelvis. The poor boy had shit his pants before he died. It certainly accounted for the smell. His lower belly, too, had been caught. William saw a tangle of grey guts and blood instead of a navel. The segmented clear-plastic hands that he used for everyday work were soon smeared with offal as he removed the uniform and underwear from the body. A glance at the still face showed that the boy hadn’t shaved this morning, as regulation required. The young ones always did like to dodge the rules.

Life was so fleeting for these frail human bodies, he thought. Just a slip here and a nudge there and a crate could destroy all. Worse still was living to witness one’s own slow decay, to outgrow life and love as if it were a layer of skin to be shed. Humans should live no longer than butterflies, given no time to form families or to watch the breakdown of their own bodies, given nothing but a short, happy life and then oblivion. This one had been swatted early, had tasted life and then had it cruelly knocked aside. But was it better to be fused from cold metal and endlessly maintained? William would have upgrades indefinitely, as long as they weren’t too expensive and he functioned as he should.

Hadn’t he seen this boy at breakfast a few times? Not that William ate, no. He was often pressed into serving, though. Two days ago, or perhaps three, the boy had asked for an extra helping of bacon. But he hadn’t made the request a command. No, the boy had allowed William a rare privilege, a chance to exercise his judgement. Of course, William had acceded, thankful for the attention. And now the boy was crushed like a bug on a cold steel bed, wings of blood unfurled for all to see.