Between beeps and coughs, he begged to be unplugged, begged for them to let his fluid tanks run dry. He liked to paint and he complained often of never having made a truly great work, never having left a real mark in the world. The light that blinked on his face kept him awake at night. His printer would run out of ink, the needle dancing across blank rolls of paper that spewed forth at the top of every hour. When he finally began to crumble, they buried him – a heap of parts – at the top of a hill. The funeral was small. A quiet electric hum seemed to whisper from the grave.
