I was walking down a hill by my house today around 7pm, still far from sunset and still as hot as mid-day. I had to get out because I've been sick for three days. Three days that represent the only days I've been sick since last June. Gar. But anyway. I had walked up that hill to go to the store for no particular reason. Though when I got to the store I realized I needed toilet paper and it was on sale (I never buy toilet paper when it's not on sale. I mean, I have principles.) I also needed a sympathy card for my grandma, whose husband died this week (it is sad, yes, I know. I didn't really know him, but she had been married to him for four years. My longest relationship has been two years and several months. So, four years is nothing to shake a stick at, especially when you're in your 70s. So, yes, it is sad.) I also bought a diet vanilla coke, which I have been on the lookout for for at least two weeks, that is, since the first and last time I had a diet vanilla coke. Later on I will explain why a) diet and b) coke. I mean, really, I have to justify it to myself too. So, walking down that hill: 7pm and it was still as warm as mid-day outside. Finally, it's summer, I thought, as sweat found its way to the part my lower back where I notice that, yes, sweat does indeed trickle.

Two male cyclists, in full spadex gear and expensive road bikes, were racing each other up the hill. It appeared to be a finale of sorts and I assumed they had just come from a few hours of cycling along the canal. I don't know whether they were smiling from the competition or whether they simply had to keep their mouths wide open to get enough air in their lungs to make it up the hill. Whatever the case, their race appeared to end in a tie and they high-fived each other. The brown-haired one then turned his bike around and headed back down the hill, to the amusement of his friend. As he powered back up the hill, as I felt every one of my downhill steps shudder through my body, he still smiled, though I could see that every muscle was straining. I wanted to compare him to a machine and then thought that was unfair. Our bodies are not machines. We might think we put fuel in and energy comes out, but there's much more to us than that. What compells someone, after biking up a long hill to turn back down that hill and do it all over again. It is not efficient, it has no meaning other than to do it, and to know that one can do it. A machine does not have these thoughts, and a machine certainly doesn't smile while doing it.

The thing is that I really like machines. And robots. And cyborgs. I like the idea of the human machine so much. But I think that perhaps I'm defining "machine" differently here, as in a machine I "like", rather than cogs and wheels and bits and bytes. If we are machines, then we're very funny machines, chaotic and unpredictable. I can't imagine our cyborg incarnations being any less chaotic. In fact, they'll probably be more so.