The Words of a Golem

The Golem sat down on a low brick wall, took out his sandwiches and unwrapped them. It was a pleasant day, sunny but not glaring, warm but not hot, but all of that seemed distant and irrelevant to the Golem. He was preoccupied by his hunger – a dull, joyless hunger, comfort-seeking rather than healthy appetite. In all the other stories, golems don’t eat – at least not normal, human-type food, but in this one, this golem does. Suppose golems can be different, just like us. Corned beef and mustard, on thick white bread. He liked to joke that brown bread was for grown-ups, which, of course, when it came to the Golem, was silly. He was by now almost thirty-five. He took a bite, and chewed thoughtfully as he watched the people of the city go by – all full of purpose, going places, doing things. Laughing, talking on the phone. Free.

There was a sadness to the Golem that day. Not a desperate, fidgety, angsty sadness like he sometimes had – and he did have that, and quite often. No, this was a more resigned type of thing, more a sort of nagging morosity, and it clouded the simple thoughts that occupied his golem head. He was thinking about change. Or, more specifically, about People’s ability to change. To change themselves, change their situations, to change the very lives they led. People, human people, had the capacity to change almost anything about themselves – they weren’t limited in the way that he was, bound completely to the words placed inside his head by hands unknown, at the time he was created.

He'd even spoken to the people themselves about it, those he knew who had found themselves unhappy and had done the necessary things, had “turned it all around” or whatever. They, despite their capabilities, didn’t ever seem to understand.

“You can change too,” they would invariably say, “you can do this. You can step of outside your life, you can be someone else – you can be anything if you believe it’s possible, if you can believe in yourself.”

But the Golem knew it wasn’t the case, not at all. How could they not see? The words were simple, and there was nothing he could do to change them, nothing at all. He’d tried, tried a lot actually, over the years, but he always seemed to get stuck, to run right into the limitations built into him. All that he could do was to live within the rules, to do the simple things he was able to, and to try not to wish for anything more. He felt the words pulling at him whenever he tried to act outside their great, strict, unspoken bounds. He thought about these people and their advice, right then, and imagined himself replying,

A person can change – a real, human person can step outside of their life, can be anything they want to be. But I am not a person – not a real one. Though I may look like a person, in fact I’m just a machine, just a working body, fit for task and nothing more. Just a device, a tool.

But, in real life, he would just smile when people told him those things about himself. How could they understand, if he were to actually tell them?

Just a very sad tool, he thought to himself. He bit into his second sandwich.

People, again, real human people, brought great things into their lives by the force of their own will. Their great, powerful, resilient will. Free will – the Golem had his own free will, he was sure of it. Obviously, he wasn’t able to change the words in his head – no-one could do that, but he had free will. Didn’t he? He had the will to want to change himself, to be free, had at least the dream of changing the words and being someone else – how else to explain the thrashing frustration that kept him awake some nights, what else could be providing the force behind the desire to be free? It must be will, his own free will.

So, what did that mean? Despite all of his yearning for change, for freedom, he would never achieve it, would never be free of the limitations of his words, of his curse as he sometimes thought of it. It wasn’t possible. So did this mean that his will was less powerful than that of people? Was it in fact the case that he had no will at all, and only the poor imitation of it? Maybe he was just upsetting himself by trying to believe he had proper, functioning free will – after all, when had he ever, when could he ever act upon it? He would never solidify any of his desire for change, nothing he dreamed of would ever materialise, ever solidify into reality. Does it mean that your will is a mirage, if nothing is ever borne of it, if nothing ever breaks free of your imagination and crosses over into the physical world?

Or – and he didn’t know it right then, but this was the very beginnings of a completely new type of thought for the Golem – did it only mean that he did in fact have a will, only that it was much, much smaller, and much less powerful than that which the People had been born with?

He didn’t know. He felt angry at himself for calling the words his curse just then – he hated himself when he did that, hated his own ingratitude. What a horrible creature he could be at times. He’d been given a great gift, somebody had given him life, and in exchange all he had to do was to live by the words and rules built into him. Words and rules that he would never read, and could never alter, only had to feel and live with. The truth was, he was very lucky. He had a life, and a body to live it in – to want more, to complain about what he did in fact have, was selfish. Greedy, even. He decided, half-heartedly, not to do it anymore, not to dream of better things, of change, of happiness, of fulfilling life, or of any other things that were impossible.

He thought for a second, and then decided to change his mind – okay, he would allow himself to dream, but not to complain. Yes, that was fair enough. That could be the plan, no more complaining. Dreaming, fine, complaining, not fine.

Wish good, moan bad.

Deal, he thought to himself, as he deftly folded up his piece of tinfoil and tucked it into the pocket of his overalls for use again tomorrow.

He stood up from where he’d been sitting suddenly, buoyed up by his affirmation, and stepped right into the path of passing jogger, who laughed good-naturedly and dodged him, then clutched at his chest in mock distress. The Golem returned the jogger’s laugh, and began to make his way through the park, back to work. But a new thought rose up in his head, completely unforeseen…

He could walk, couldn’t he? Well, of course he could – he was walking right that minute. Stiffly walking, awkward and golem-like, but walking nonetheless. Absolutely he could walk, and he had, on very rare occasions, run. He’d run for the bus many times, and he’d had to run once in work, when an alarm had gone off. He’d been told off for that – apparently running was the wrong thing to do when an alarm went off, who knew? But in any case, it was completely possible. Totally possible for him to run – obviously there was nothing in the words that would stop him from doing that, even if for no real reason.

Well then maybe jogging was something that he could do. Maybe he could do that, that one simple thing, maybe his very small, not-very-powerful will could extend that far – and most importantly, that would be a very, very small, and very, very simple change. A change to his strict, limited, rule-driven golem life.

He went back to work, and the little thought swelled up and grew big in his mind as he carried out his simple tasks through the afternoon, so much so that by the time he went home for the night, he was filled with a new and vitalising excitement. Something was about to be made real – something was actually going to happen.

*

His feet didn’t really hurt right then, it was more of a numbness. There were however many parts of his body that did in fact hurt, oddly they were the parts he hadn’t expected to do so. His back felt tight and sore, low down, his shoulders felt unbearably heavy. There was some kind of horrible hotness in his hips that felt serious and urgent. He was going to need some different clothes next time, but that was ok – he wasn’t wealthy, but the Golem did have some money. He realised then that this meant he wanted to do it again, and he couldn’t help but wonder why – why did he already want to do this, uncomfortable, vaguely unpleasant thing again, when he hadn’t even finished the first time yet?

His heart pounded in his head, and his lungs burned with every ragged breath he took. His very real, flesh and blood lungs – the Golem’s lungs were just like those of the other joggers, flesh and blood. In this story, they were not made of clay at all.

He stopped at the low wall, at the very same spot where he’d sat down yesterday – the same place he sat for his lunch on every dry day, only today instead of sitting, he stood with his hands on his hips and slowly, very slowly caught his breath. As he did, he paid attention to the pounding of his heart in his ears, for the first time in he didn’t know how long. The thud of it almost hurt. Had he ever listened to it before? He wasn’t sure, but as he listened it made him feel a little less like a machine than usual. To the outside world, today was no different that yesterday – but inside, in the little rule-bound world the Golem inhabited, inside his golem head, today was very different indeed. He turned around and noticed the jogger who’d almost bumped into him the day before was coming toward him – looking, annoyingly, almost completely composed, even smiling. Would he notice the Golem, standing there, panting and gasping?

“Hey, it’s my mate – said I’d get you next time, didn’t I?” the composed jogger called out jovially, and the Golem returned his grin. He couldn’t remember the stranger saying he’d get him next time, but the goodness of the run was flowing around his golem body, and he felt… elated, almost, so it felt good to smile at someone.

He wondered – on another day of course, not today – if he could get to the park a little later, and find himself starting off at the same time as the friendly jogger. They could run around the little path together, and make jokes about getting people next time, and pretend to be having heart attacks, laughing.

On any other day, the Golem would have dismissed the thought out of hand, as patently impossible – he wouldn’t be able to do that, there were only certain things he was able to do, same as always. But on that particular day, catching his breath and listening to his thumping heart, the idea didn’t seem completely out of the question.

*

The Golem wore a snazzy yellow hat when he ran, which was every other day. Iain, the very friendly jogger who’d started this whole… thing off by nearly crashing into him, had suggested it, to keep the sun out of his eyes on clear days, and the rain out of his eyes when the weather was bad. Well, he’d suggested a hat, not necessarily a snazzy yellow one – the Golem had chosen the colour himself.

Nowhere in the implanted words did it seem to say that he couldn’t wear a hat, yellow, snazzy or otherwise.

When he ran now, he didn’t need to stop so often, or to lean on his knees or the wall when he finished. He found he noticed the fresh, outdoorsy smell of the trees, and of the grass after the rain. He could hear the birdsong over the thudding at his temples. He was getting better – he could even hold a conversation with Iain whenever the two of them happened to be running at the same time. The Golem’s idle thoughts of starting his run a little later and running together with “the friendly jogger” had come to fruition, and now several times a week he would find himself alongside the fitter, more confident man as they lapped the park, the Golem clearly holding Iain up, although he didn’t ever seem to mind.

He felt differently about things since starting his hobby – felt differently about his life. Only a little, but different nonetheless. As though maybe even though he was just a machine, just a walking, talking tool for certain basic tasks, built for the convenience of others, he might be able to find a kind of solace in some of the simple things he was able to do. He’d never become one of the laughing, talking-on-the-phone, going places people he saw everyday, that was ridiculous – but perhaps he could be something else. Maybe the words weren’t quite as rigid as he’d always believed them to be. He’d lost some weight – not deliberately, well, not as such, but he was definitely slimmer. People had noticed, a few people in work had commented on how well he looked. Wasn’t that, technically…. change?

Iain had invited him to another, bigger park in another part of town, this coming Saturday. A group of runners, all friendly, nothing too serious, Iain had said. Saturday morning at nine, “by the fountain”. The Golem had said yes, as though he knew it well – he’d have to get there early and find the fountain. No matter, he was looking forward to it. There was a giddiness in him when he thought about it, an unfamiliar energy in his chest, a not-altogether-unpleasant shakiness. He would be going to a place with People, who did things.

Iain had asked his name, and the Golem had told him it was George.

*

The Golem carried on his simple tasks throughout the working weeks, as though nothing had changed. At times he wondered if anything actually had changed at all. Yes, he had what could be called a hobby, and because of that hobby, he now had what could be called friends, several of them in fact – but what had changed, really? At any given moment, what was different?

When he changed the printer cartridges, what was different? Nothing. When he sorted out the goods in, what was different? Nothing. When he did the inventory? Nothing. Maybe that’s why it was possible for him to run for no reason, whether in company or alone, with snazzy hat or without – maybe because it didn’t interfere with the words, and didn’t in fact change anything at all, he was able to do it. Or maybe… maybe the change he felt was deep inside, in a part the words couldn’t reach. Did such a part of him exist? Was that not the preserve of People?

Was it part of their Free Will?

Did his own, smaller, less powerful will come pre-equipped with it’s own small quiet place, away from the dominating rules that reached out from the Words? Well, maybe it did – maybe they were in separate rooms, the Will and the Words. Maybe he could learn to grow that little room, that quiet space, learn to fit more things into it. There could be room for something else, something besides running and the hidden desire for freedom, for expression.

He was unloading boxes of paper from a trolley while he thought about this, his back aching slightly from the labour, and the monotony of the task, the dreary pointlessness of it began to gnaw at him in a familiar way. He felt like the same old Golem, the one stuck in an unchanging situation, rattling his metaphysical cage – not George, who ran for fun in his lunch hour and at weekends in the park.

He caught himself preparing to complain then – and caught it a lot earlier than usual. He reminded himself that his will, his desire to do things had actually produced a change in his life. A thought had appeared in his head, that day on his lunch break, appeared unbidden and made it’s way out into the physical world in a way he would never have imagined. His clothes fit better, his mood was lighter, his tasks grated on him that little bit less…

He stacked the boxes in the dim little storeroom, and wondered if there was something else, something he hadn’t yet thought of, that he could do without running into the limitations of his Golem existence.

*

It was May now, and the Golem was running with the people he met on a Saturday morning, at the fountain, in the park. They all said hello to him, everyone knew George by now. George with the hats – he’d bought another two by now, one orange and one green. He was oddly drawn to the loud colours, wearing them felt analogous to some unnamed, extroverted act that he would never commit. Like shouting in a quiet room, but palatable, because at the end of the day it was a hat, and had an ordinary function. Anyway, with or without the hats, he ran at a pace that meant he didn’t hold anyone up any more, and he was able to take part in the slow-moving conversations that took place between the runners as they moved through the park, two or three abreast and changing positions in the pack as they went.

He was running alone, enjoying the sunlight filtering down to him through the trees above, the crisp morning air in his lungs and the limber spring in his steps, the feeling of lightness that came with fitness, when Sarah fell into step with him, and asked how he was doing.

‘Not bad,’ he said, and gave her a smile, ‘plodding on.’

She smiled back, and said wryly, ‘Kinda the idea, innit?’

The Golem laughed, and they ran on in silence for just a minute. He prodded himself to speak.

‘How’re you doing?’ he said eventually, ‘Been upto much?’

‘I’m alright.’ Sarah said, and paused. ‘Yeah… alright really. Been through a bit of a change, y’know. Kinda thing makes you question your worth, like…’

‘Oh?’ said the Golem, and instantly regretted it. He didn’t want to pry. Sarah went on though, and seemed to have wanted the prompt.

‘Yeah, just, like… you ever feel sorta stuck? Like you went down a certain path, and it took you somewhere that did nothin’ for you… or, more like, you got taken down a certain path, and couldn’t find your way back down it…’

The Golem didn’t know what to say – how could he say that he did know what she meant, that he was a Golem with a set of enchanted words deep inside his head that trapped him in a set life, that of a machine cursed with an imagination, cursed with the knowledge that People were born able to do whatever they wanted, but that he never would? He managed a non-committal ‘Uh-uh.’

‘Well I couldn’t ‘ave it to be honest. So I’m making some changes. Are you doing the summer bridge run, on the twenty-fifth?’

‘Er, yes, I think so.’ The Golem hadn’t heard about the run, but could run anywhere and for any reason, and would happily do so if invited.

‘Well that’s one of them. One of the changes, I mean – I’ve never done a proper run before, a proper organised one like. Doing a proper run, I’ve got back into reading. I used to read so much when I was younger, and it just left me. Well I thought, it’s time to bring these things back, like. Don’t wait for it, go and get it. I’ve even joined a Spanish class.’

‘A Spanish class?’ The Golem felt the rustling formation of a thought in his head.

‘Yeah – conversational Spanish. It’s not like they did in school, there’s no exams or whatever, just talking and learning. I’ve always wanted to speak a foreign language, and now I’m gonna do it. Gonna broaden my mind, expand my perspective.’

‘Expand your perspective…’ the Golem said slowly.

‘Yeah,’ said Sarah, and stumbled a little as she turned to look him in the face, ‘hey why am I telling you all this?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said sheepishly.

‘Well me neither,’ Sarah said with a little laugh, ‘you’re a natural listener, you are.’

The rest of the run passed in silence for the Golem, who was incubating an idea. A few of the other runners said hello and asked how he was, but he was brief in his answers. Brief but polite, of course. As they all stretched off back at the fountain, several were making plans for brunch at a local café. As yet, that was too much for the Golem, he wouldn’t put himself forward for such a thing – maybe if someone asked him directly, then yes, but the general call ‘Who’s up for brunch at Hovel?’ would require him to present himself for the outing.

He stretched off, thoroughly as ever, he had to keep his body functional for work after all, but when Sarah made to walk away, he surprised himself more than possibly ever before.

He stopped her and asked if he could go to the Spanish class with her sometime.

*

‘Hola hombre! Todo va bien?’

The Golem thought for a second.

‘Si, en pocas palabras…’ he said, and wobbled his hand in the universal sign for more-or-less.

Pocas Palabras, small words. But in his head, it was small stories – palabras, like parable. Or palaver, which people said all the time, and which meant ‘story’. Another thing he already knew about and could describe, but now knew from a slightly different angle. New words, new angles. Stephen, the host of the Spanish group (host, not teacher, and group, not class), or Esteban as they called him during their conversations, said that learning another language was like learning to see the world in higher definition. The more words you have to describe something, the more names you have for it, the more clearly you can perceive it. You can better understand what it is, beneath the words.

Another way to say this is that when you learn another language, you bring about a change in yourself, and not just the words you use.

‘Tu?’ he asked Sarah, with a smile.

She laughed.

‘Suave, amigo, muy suave.’ Another word for smooth – another way to think of smooth things, and another way to think of every person he’d ever heard called suave, in the English language. They all seemed a tiny bit different now.

‘Where did you pick that one up?’ she fell back to English, ‘en pocas palabras…. Nice!’

‘Thanks. Just kind of stumbled onto it watching TV.’

‘You watch Spanish TV now?’

‘Well, I suppose Latin American…’

‘Well get you!’ Sarah grinned at him, and they walked into the group together.

The Golem wondered, not for the first time, why it was that Sarah seemed happy to talk to him when they went running, or to the Spanish group. It made no sense to him – why would a person, capable of anything, of “doing the things” as he sometimes thought of it, want to speak to a limited creature like him? Made no sense at all.

But then there they were, sitting down in a circle on hard plastic chairs with ten other people, building their conversations, adding more definition to their individual worlds. Stephen, about to become Esteban, looked up from the book he was reading.

‘Sarah, George, Bienvenidos! Ready to add to your words?’

*

Adding to his words. He’d never thought of it like that, but when he did, it was so obvious – adding to his words, not changing them. Obviously, Stephen hadn’t meant it that way, he didn’t know about the struggle with the words inside the Golem’s head, but nonetheless… It was a lot less daunting, and so that’s what he did, he added to them. He kept going to the Spanish group, and kept meeting with his running friends, and the small changes began to accumulate. He watched the TV in Spanish, or he listened to podcasts, which were completely new to him. He’d heard about one in particular from Iain, the original friendly jogger, now a sort-of friend. A pop-science podcast, but which dealt a lot in motivation and personal development. Which the Golem soon realised was exactly what he was interested in, in fact, was exactly what he’d been struggling with for so much time. As soon as he heard the topics discussed, new-to-him concepts like procrastination, or negative self-talk, he realised how familiar they were to him. How similar they sounded, when broken down and properly explored, to the feelings he battled with due to being a trapped, restricted Golem, rather than a dynamic, free, human being. He couldn’t help but wonder though, why on earth the podcast dealt so heavily in such things – what use did People have for this kind of content? Unless…

Unless sometimes, People themselves, the great, free-minded and infinitely adaptable People who could “do the things,” sometimes found themselves unable to “do the things.”

While motivation was being discussed on the podcast, late one Wednesday night after Spanish group, the hosts began talking about a part of the human brain called the Anterior mid-Cingulate Cortex. Easy for you to say, thought the Golem absently, but the show went on to say that in people who accomplish difficult tasks, feats of endurance and suchlike, this region is well-developed, but in people with sedentary lifestyles, who struggle with motivation or willpower, it’s much smaller, and under-developed. As a person pushed themselves into action in whatever way, it was like the training of a muscle – the act of pushing, so to speak, the skill of motivation became easier to them, or more familiar maybe. The theory had been posited that this part of the brain was the container, so-to-speak, of the Will. Some stronger, some weaker. The Golem wondered if in his head, the analogue of this Anterior mid-Cingulate cortex was the container of the words. And maybe if he was adding to them, then the container might be beginning to grow.

And maybe if it were to grow enough, if he kept on adding to the words for long enough – well then maybe his intangible and wholly theoretical will would grow along with it…

*

It was a clear day, the day of the bridge run. A clear day with a cooling wind, perfect day for it, people had kept saying, when they were all herded into the starting area, a place that the Golem kept wanting to call a pen, and having to stop himself. He didn’t like any kind of restriction, physical or otherwise.

There was a keen, eager excitement in him that day, which was nonsense when he thought about it – he was just running, nothing more. The exact same thing as walking, only faster, why should it hold any extra significance? Why should moving himself from one place to another, along with somewhere near five thousand other people all doing the same thing as him at the same time have any greater impact on him than say walking to work from his house? To an unfeeling, uninvolved observer, it shouldn’t.

It did, though. He had a notion inside of him, that had been building all week, longer even – the notion that somehow he would be changed by this experience, that things would be different for him from then on, even if only by a small measure. Even as he thought it, he felt the old habitual thoughts rising up to dismiss the idea, but they were weaker now, much weaker than in the past when ideas of liberation or of personal empowerment could be swept away effortlessly by his adherence to the words he knew were inside his head.

Conditioning, as discussed on the podcast he loved so much, sounded very much like what he had felt, and continued to feel even now – although just like with the foreign language that he learned with such enthusiasm, adding to his words (a phrase he’d taken completely to heart, and used constantly) by learning about such concepts as conditioning, motivation and procrastination seemed to lessen the grip his frustrations had on him. He could still feel them, grasping at him while he did things he’d once believed he never could, but he was increasingly able to slip their hold. He remembered the words of his friend Stephen, who’d told him he could see the world in higher definition by learning more ways to describe it – he hadn’t realised at the time that this would be true of his internal world, as well as his physical one.

Stephen and some of the others from the Spanish conversation group were there, and would be cheering him and Sarah across the line, or so went the plan. Sarah, Iain and most of the Saturday running group were in the pen – starting area – with him, all stretching off, some chatting, most of them silent. He thought of the two groups, how he moved amongst them, and of how there were people in his life now. A voice came over the PA system, bursting from a speaker fastened high on the green structural steelwork of the Jubilee bridge where it towered above them, and announced “Just 2 minutes to the starting gun, for the tenth annual Summer Jubilee Bridge Run, all runners to the starting area please.” A great rush of excitement swept through the Golem just then, an irresistible urge to burst into motion, to jump high and carelessly into the air like a child, free of inhibition or self-consciousness, and so he did – lightly disguised as some unconventional warm-up technique, he sprang up off his toes, threw his arms above him and let himself feel the singular joy of the moment, gave himself to the present completely. He never saw the many people smiling in his direction.

Nor did he hear the starting gun, if there even was a gun anymore, but suddenly they were off, all running together and fully focussed on not stumbling or tripping over one another other, like a herd of brightly-coloured but clumsy foals. He fell into a rhythm quite naturally, and he remembered that early in the hobby he’d thought that maybe the simple rhythm suited his golem nature – now he wasn’t wholly sure that was the case. The high tarmac of the Jubilee bridge with it’s estuary views passed in what felt like moments, as the runners spaced out into sparser groups and made their way via closed dual carriageway onto smaller, more pleasant roads. Some runners wore headphones, tiny little battery-powered things nestled in their ears – the Golem didn’t, had no interest in that at all. They seemed to want to distract themselves, to ‘get through’ the run, to hurry the event past themselves. He wanted to feel the entire thing, wanted to be present for it all – the running was the goal, for him. Besides, what would he listen to? Podcasts maybe, at a push. Discussions of personal development, of growth mindset – of liberation. Things that helped him to see more clearly, concepts that formed better handholds with which to grip his own reality.

The tenth annual Summer Jubilee Bridge Run. Ten miles, or further than the Golem had ever run in one go. It was difficult, and he felt the bounds of his physical fitness here and there, however… it was by no means over yet, in fact probably only about halfway, but he hadn’t felt anything lacking in the willpower department so far. In fact, something inside told him that he wouldn’t do.

Near the top of a long rise in the route, when he was really working his lungs, he looked across at the spectators and saw a large card held up with the word ‘Respira’ drawn clearly on it in black marker. Breathe, he thought to himself, and the Spanish word made him think about perception, about objectivity, and about perspective. He breathed deeply and calmly, and as he crested the rise, he realised of a sudden what he got from running, why it had called to him in the first place, and why it continued to call to him. All the drive for change, all the frustration over who and what he was, all the angst and uncertainty was misplaced – he had thought he wanted to be something else, to be in some different situation, to be doing some other things, but that wasn’t the truth. He didn’t want to be changed. He wanted to be changing.

The notion he’d carried into the day, that he would be changed by this experience was both right and wrong. He would be changed by it, but not by it alone – all experiences changed him, all of the time. The years of frustration, of stagnancy had changed him, had birthed the small, struggling, growing will that had propelled him into this period of liberation, into this, his… emergence. He turned his focus to this will now, this ethereal, metaphysical thing which drove him on through his life, and saw that it was nothing but an idea, nothing but a concept, like all the others he’d learned about. He examined it internally, as he ran on and on, turned it over in his mind and found it perfectly adequate. If this will of his was just a concept, an idea, then it could be any size or strength he wanted it to be. It didn’t have to be small, weak or lacking in it's own confidence – it could be towering in it’s enormity, could be endlessly strong, fearless. It could be indefatigable, it could be…

Infinite.

He almost stopped running, but caught himself in time. He knew then that he’d make it the ten miles without stopping, and knew also that this would be only the first of many remarkable things he would go on to do, to experience and enjoy. His life could be full, didn’t need to be empty. As he ran onward, the heat of exertion burned on his chest and on his back, sweat beaded across his human shoulders and ran over his human skin. He let a smile out onto his human face, drew breath into his flesh-and-blood human lungs, and atop a crest in the road, he ran on a very tired pair of very human legs and saw that he was in fact not a Golem after all. Not some poor creature, bound by words, built only for toil, for the convenience of others.

There were no words, and he was no Golem.

Only a man, who had once thought himself a machine.