I finished this book the other day ("The Gum Thief" by Douglas Coupland - it is fantastic) in which this girl briefly describes a dream she has. It starts with the end of the world. Every living thing dies except for her. The people around her die. Birds drop out of the sky. Plants aren't so obvious in their deaths, but they all die, too. She is the last living thing in the world, but not for long. In her body are millions of microorganisms. Germs, bacteria, tiny mites - all dead. Without them, she dies, too.

Later, she imagines people spontaneously disappearing, but only the parts of them that are distinctly THEM; the parts which contain their DNA. Their clothes are left behind, but that's not all. Only the root of the hair contains DNA, so the rest of the hair remains. The water that composes most of the human body is just water - it contains no DNA, so it is not specific to an individual, and it splashes out. Even bones, aside from their marrow, contain nothing to link them directly to any one person, and of course their are transplanted organs, food, injections, chemicals, minerals, and implants that are not technically a part of US.

The question is, what is your body, really? Is being a machine so different than what the rest of us have?

The answers is yes, of course it's different, because I'm not made out of blue and gold metal. Duh.