Look at me, I'm back and writing horrible magical realism! This was prompted by 'rories' on the suits-meme, that asked for "Mike's brain is actually a machine."
There's a contraption in Mike that ticks and whirs and spins and cranks. Everyone else's skull contains a brain. His contains a Machine.
He's had it ever since he can remember. He supposes that his parents may have done isomething/i to him, while he was forming inside of his mother, to give him such a Machine. He's not quite sure what. They died before he could ask.
He's wondered if their accident was really an accident. What if they had been intentionally killed because of his Machine? Was there something completely and horribly illegal they had done to give him a Machine, to make him smarter than the rest? Did someone find out about it and want to hurt them? If that's the case, he's the reason why his parents are dead. It makes sense to him.
Trevor doesn't understand this almost-guilt that Mike feels. Mike didn't sign up for this Machine, and in any case, wouldn't Bad Men want to kill Mike instead, for he's the one with the maybe-illegal Machine? This leads him to think that his parents really iwere/i killed in an accident: an accident that was meant for ihim/i.
Mike's Machine is most definitely Advanced Proficient in the way it works, but he often finds that he sees everything in a different light than others. What they see as wrong, he sees almost-right. What they see right is only-half right. What they see as ugly, he sees as fascinatingly beautiful.
What they see as irrational guilt, he sees as justified remorse.
It makes sense to Mike, the fact that he could very well be the one to blame with his parent's death, but it doesn't to anyone else. The police filed the crash as an unfortunate accident, and then went on with their lives.
He's learned to not mention his Machine to anyone he doesn't completely trust. The list of people who know contains three people, and possibly two others: Gram, Jenny, and Trevor are the only three he's trusted enough to tell. He's not completely sure if his parents had known, but he likes to think they did. That they died knowing Mike's true self-half child, half Machine.
Mike is not normal. They discovered this when he was seven years old and playing in Gram's backyard with Trevor. He'd tripped and fallen, cutting his head on the sharp corner of their patio table. However, no blood poured out: there was just a clean slice straight through his scalp. If you looked close enough at the wound, you could see a little bit of metal interlocked with metal; a cast-iron spring, aluminum plates.
Gram immediately took charge, quickly bringing him inside and making him sit up on the kitchen table, now clear of everything. No one questioned how she had known exactly what to do. It was then that Gram taught Trevor and him first-aid for those with Machines. Closing up the tear in his skin, Gram slowly explained to both of them how to stitch skin correctly, how to pull the thread and hold the wound ijust so/i. Later on, when she was brought into the loop, Jenny was taught as well.
Each of them knew exactly how to stitch his skin back together, how to treat illnesses, how to set broken bones.
He couldn't ever go to the emergency room, because what in the world would they do with a boy who was filled with what looked like the inner-workings of a clock? i(Spoiler alert: Gram had told him, when he was fourteen and asked her 'what would have happened if I was in the car with Mom and Pa, during the accident?' that Mike would've been cut open by doctors and never let go. They like to experiment, she said.)/i
Getting older, he liked to research, especially Machines. He eventually gave up when he found that there was almost no information on them, anywhere. No medical journals, no matter how old or new they were, contained any information about them. He'd even taken to reading old myths and legends, seeing if there was any being that had any resemblance to him. He knew that all legends were originally based on facts. But, there was absolutely nothing there either.
The only thing he'd ever found about another machine was an obituary. Her name was Helen and she died in the 1970's. The accident report, written in chicken-scratch, said there was almost no blood on the pavement next to her, only strange metal parts. In the papers, it was described as a 'hate crime against a girl with a deformity'. After her death, multiple scientists wrote articles mourning the fact that they never got to learn about how her 'deformity' worked. It was then he consciously made the decision: if he was ever in such a position where he ineeded/i to go to the hospital, he still wouldn't. He'd kill himself first, or have someone shoot him, before he'd be experimented on.
I really need help. Review!