Selfhood

She raised one hand and flexed its fingers, and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely at her command. Or did it have some little life of its own? She bent her finger and straightened it. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between moving and not moving, when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. If she could only find herself at the crest, she thought, she might find the secret of herself, the part of her that was really in charge.

She brought her forefinger closer to her face, and stared at it, urging it to move. It remained still because she was pretending, she was not entirely serious, and because willing it to move, or being about to move it, was not the same as actually moving it.

There was no stitching, no seam, and yet she knew that behind the smooth continous fabric was the real self -was it her soul?- which took the decision to cease pretending, and gave the final command.