Visiting Fred, Self Engineer

Fred. A civilized living corpse, testimony to the will of man to modify oneself beyond the intentions of our alien forefathers. What a human being will do unto himself to insult the original designers. Fred, a father of early bio-modification of the crudest kind.

I sat opposite to Fred, in his living room. The man was heavily scarred, wired up to the latest Vizo-Life support machine that gurgled beside him on a trolley packed with painkillers. I glanced at what was left of the man, a torso with rotten limbs attached to it. I cringed.

We were watching television and drinking beer. The programme was a gameshow called Fear Factor, where the contestants were put through a series of tests for a chance to win the million dollar prize money. A competitor was munching through a bowl of some squirming giant insectoid larvae. The shot cut to the distressing closeups of his fellow contestants who watched the scene with disgust; freakish wannabe celebrities, who had spent most of their lives working out in gyms and under the knife of a plastic surgeon. Fred hissed a throaty laugh.

This being who calls himself Fred, for that is what remains of the man, nothing more than a consciousness and a will to exist, has spent his life removing parts of his body and attaching miscellaneous replacements from other species to itself. The boldest operation which he performed on his head with a chainsaw, to remove a part of his skull diagonally, and slowly reduce the mass of his brain by gradually slicing away small pieces.

He showed me the video of the D.I.Y operation over a year ago. He had taken enough PCP to negate the pain, as well as injecting his scalp with an illegal numbing agent. The lower part of his right forearm was a haphazardly sewn on chimpanzee hand, he used this to pick up the chainsaw, and with the komodo dragon claw of the other, he guided the machine into place.

Blood spurted onto the mirror as the teeth of the saw began to tear through the skin. His upper forearms tensed as he fought to keep the tool in position. He put the chainsaw down and wiped the mirror, smearing blood across it repeatedly until a dull reflection could be seen. He shakily popped a couple of valium pills, then proceeded to cut the other side of his head.

Two thirds of the way through the operation, the skull was thin enough for him to be able to pry it open with a screwdriver. As he poked the screwdriver into his head, large volumes of blood and liquid spilled from within. With a loud crack, the part of the skull peeled away to reveal his upper left lobe. He looked into the mirror and smiled, although the man had cut his lips off with a pair of scissors, the smile could be seen as his cheek muscles tensed and the corners of his eyes wrinkled.