A New Life

Loosing Friends

I see the trees. The signs. The shops. The bikes. It never was like this before. I don't know what happened. My world was simple. It was. Always. Now it's strange. Never the same. Again. My life is changed. I wish it was not so. I'm confused. A lot changed in 300 years. Improvements, the internet, a strange world. Life was better 300 years ago. Now life is too easy. You learn to be dependent on objects. People used to be dependent on themselves. Now they complain. I wish life could turn back to my childhood. I think it was my childhood. Now that I look at it, I see I never changed. No, not even through sleep. Not even through time. Not even through hypersleep. 300 years of hypersleep. You may not believe it, but my blood alone has kept me alive. Let me tell you how.

I was very young at the time. Probably about 7. And sensitive to cold. My blood would literally freeze. I would be taken to the hospital every winter. Finally, my parents decided that something would have to be done. They were losing money rapidly, for they were poor. They had few things to call their own. My parents had no wish to be unkind to me, but I felt sorry for them and knew I had to take action myself, as they would do nothing.

During those years, my brain was also below average intelligence. I had difficulty putting two and two together, not even mentioning the amount of time I would use to spell my name; J.J. Marco de Curcletts(I just use my nickname, Freckio, most of the time, so don't try memorizing the rest!)

My eleventh birthday came around, and that year was when my life started to really become strange. Winter came early that year. No one was prepared. Suddenly, everyone in the village became sick from a winter disease, and there was little way of curing it. Hospitals were always full, and most of the doctors were not working because they were sick. My parents, Mr and Mrs Curcletts, had to go, too. It was a few hours after they had gone that my blood froze . I lied in my bed, the blood in my arms freezing. I kept hoping someone else would come and get me, before my neck froze too and I would be unable to breath. But nobody came. I lost consciousness as my blood stopped pounding in my upper legs.

I started becoming conscious again as I was lifted onto a stretcher, rushed through some heavy doors, and an air mask was placed on me. Then I saw no more.

It was an unknown time when I woke. I was in a white hospital room, with a heart-pulse monitor quietly beeping every couple of seconds. A radio was faintly playing in the room next to mine, and I heard people moving outside the door. I swallowed and took a few deep breaths, and I realized I could breathe again, remembering that last memory in my hometown. With difficulty, I clenched and unclenched my fingers into fists, and turned my neck. I looked in a mirror beside me at my face. It looked older, and my hair had slightly changed from a light brown to a darker brown. I closed my eyes and tried to remember my latest memories, but only a few appeared. As I sat up, I heard the heavy thud of metal against foam. Metal? I looked down beside me.

On the outside of a pale blue blanket lay a metal arm.

There's this kind of weird feeling where one feels like they have lost everything in life, but still have no emotions. That's the experience I was about to feel. A doctor came in and told me to get up, as someone was waiting for me outside.

I just assumed it would be my parents, saying how sad it is that now I would have to live with a metal arm. Nevertheless, I did as the doctor told me and climbed out of the soft blue bed. I walked through the door, keeping my arm hidden by the band that was attached, to support it. A man stood up. He looked about in his mid-30s, and he was a complete stranger to me. I shook hands with my left arm, because my right was the one in a brace.

"Hi, I'm J.J., but my friends call me Freckio."

"Friends? Do you have friends anymore?"

I was startled at this response. His uneasy tone made that statement seem depressing and surprised me. Do you have friends anymore?

"What do you mean? Don't most kids have friends?"

"But you're not-" He decided to take it from a different approach. "What year were you born?"

"1688. I fell sick in 1699."

"I don't know how to say this any better without astonishing you."

I looked at my covered arm. "I don't see how I can be more astonished."

"Nevertheless, you will be. You were born almost 300 years ago. This is now the 1980s. Believe it or not, but we only found you three weeks ago, in an abandoned ghost town lying on your face, frozen. We thought you were dead, until reports came in from the hospital that your heart was beating faintly. We were barely able to save your left arm, but could not your right arm. I'm sorry. We did the best we could."

I slowly turned around in a circle and then dashed to the window. It opened out into an unknown place.

He was right. I was alone without a friend in the world.

At first I stayed in the hospital. I had to get used to the heaviness of the arm, and how to move its 'muscles' and 'bones'. Yes, it was a movable arm, but it still had not amounted to my real arm. Now my sides were lopsided, because one was heavier and muscular, while the other was skinny and weak.

The man who I had first talked to was rich, and sorry for me, so he paid for my days that I spent there. And I learned later that he had big plans for me.

Besides getting used to my right arm, I built up my strength in my left arm, because I did not want to walk around with a crooked body and the man, Arnold, said it was better for me. When I asked why, he always said,

"Why, surely there's no harm in doing so, is there?" He never told me the real reason until later.