Our narrator observes the incongruity of perceiving time through a sermon which has always lasted an exact hour but now the hour hand chimes in seconds earlier. Life is drawn from transposable lungs filled with pressurized air from the underground. Narrated as an epistolary, in form of journal entries by an unnamed scientist, the story tells of a dome-like world, encased in chromium, which these mechanical men inhabit. In the company of others, however, it becomes a communal activity, a shared pleasure We all keep spare sets of full lungs in our homes, but when one is alone, the act of opening one’s chest and replacing one’s lungs can seem little better than a chore.
It entwines neuroscience with hard sci-fi, the fantastical notion of a future where cyborgs install metal lungs to breathe and air carries all thoughts and memories of said creatures. Visceral and intense, “Exhalation” from Ted Chiang’s “Stories of Your Life and Others” is another mind-bending, remarkable short story which left me overwhelmed and literally breathless by the end. The universe will have reached perfect equilibrium It will be the end of pressure, the end of motive power, the end of thought.
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