44. The heart.

For a moment he thought about the human heart. At the moment it felt like a peculiar and alien thing: his own and those around him. A pump, never quiet, never silent.

Taking a breath, he listened to the heartbeats around him, marveling at how many of them synchronized to those nearby, though only for a few chance moments at a time. They formed sparking, invisible connections between the people who rushed around, consciously (deliberately) oblivious of each other, as their souls intertwined and then quickly pulled apart, unobserved by all but him.

He looked at his hand. Ignoring the oddities that were just his--the surprisingly smooth, unlined surface of his palm; the odd golden quality of it; the slight, almost imperceptible sparkle where the two types of skin met each other at the sides of his fingers--he watched the blood charge through veins and arteries. The hand, a vehicle. So fragile, yet so resilient: so human.