I am not alive. I am an engine block made of cast iron and aluminum alloy, machined to tolerances measured in thousandths of an inch. The date stamp on my crankshaft says I was assembled on March 14, 1972, at the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan. I have no consciousness in the human sense of the word. I have no feelings, no memories, no awareness of time passing. But I record physical changes, and physical changes are a kind of language if you know how to read them.

On March 14, 1972, I was stamped, bored, honed, assembled, and tested. The test lasted thirty seconds. The test recorded that my cylinders held compression within specifications and my bearings rotated within tolerances. Then I was crated and shipped to a dealership in eastern Ohio.

On April 2, 1972, I was installed in a vehicle. The installation took four hours. The technician who installed me used a torque wrench set to seventy-five foot-pounds on the head bolts. He was wearing gloves with a hole in the right thumb. I record this because the torque pattern is asymmetrical, a signature that future examinations would detect.

On July 18, 2003, I was removed from the vehicle for the first time. The odometer connected to my transmission recorded 187,432 miles. The removal was performed by a man whose fingerprints are on file with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. His name was not Frank Callahan. His name was Tommy.

The next three years are a period of physical stillness punctuated by brief intervals of intense activity. During these intervals, I am disassembled and reassembled multiple times. My cylinder heads are removed and reinstalled. My pistons are replaced with aftermarket components. My connecting rods are shot-peened and balanced. My crankshaft is ground and polished. Each modification changes the physical properties of the assembly. The compression ratio increases. The rev limit increases. The operating temperature range shifts upward.

On September 12, 2006, a new component is attached to my intake manifold. It is a housing made of black plastic and aluminum, approximately four inches by six inches by two inches. Inside the housing is a circuit board populated with microchips, capacitors, and resistors. Wires run from the circuit board to my fuel injectors, my ignition coils, my throttle position sensor, my oxygen sensor. The circuit board is warm from the moment it is connected. It will remain warm, even when the engine is not running, for the rest of its existence.

The circuit board communicates with me through electrical impulses. It sends signals that change the timing of my fuel injection, the duration of my injector pulses, the advance of my spark. These signals change the way I burn fuel, the way I produce power, the way I respond to the driver's commands. I do not prefer one set of signals over another. I am a machine. I do what the signals tell me to do.

On the night of March 2, 2010, the circuit board sends signals that are different from any it has sent before. The signals are more aggressive, more persistent. They command me to produce more power than my design specifications recommend. My cylinder temperatures rise beyond normal operating range. My exhaust gas temperature exceeds twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit. My oil thins beyond its designed viscosity range. I continue to operate because I am designed to operate. I do not have a safety cutoff because nobody designed a safety cutoff for signals this extreme.

The driver's hands on the steering wheel apply forces that indicate a turn is being attempted. The circuit board continues to send acceleration commands. The driver's hands apply more force. The circuit board continues to send acceleration commands. The rear wheels lose traction. The driver's hands apply maximum corrective force. The circuit board sends one final acceleration command.

Impact force measured at forty-seven G. The driver's side of the vehicle compresses twenty-three inches. My crankshaft stops rotating at 6,823 RPM. The circuit board is damaged beyond function. The circuit board's last recorded signal is a fuel injector pulse for cylinder number three. Cylinder number three's injector was in the process of opening when the impact occurred. It never closed.

On March 17, 2010, the vehicle is recovered and transported to a garage in Youngstown, Ohio. The driver of the vehicle is identified as Thomas Callahan, deceased. The garage is owned by Frank Callahan, next of kin. I am examined by a man who identifies himself as Ray. His fingerprints are on file with the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. He records my serial number, my casting date, my displacement. He photographs my cylinder heads, my intake manifold, my damaged circuit board.

On April 5, 2010, the circuit board is removed. The removal is performed by Frank Callahan. He uses a crowbar. The circuit board fractures into forty-seven pieces. The fragments are collected and placed in a bucket. The bucket is filled with concrete. The bucket is transported by automobile to a location on the Mahoning River. The bucket is submerged. The water temperature at the time of submersion is fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit. The current velocity is approximately two knots. The bucket settles on the riverbed at a depth of approximately twelve feet. The concrete will cure in approximately twenty-eight days. After that, the fragments of the circuit board will be physically unrecoverable.

On June 1, 2010, I am removed from the vehicle and placed on an engine stand in the corner of the garage. The vehicle body is transported to a scrap yard in Farrell, Pennsylvania. The vehicle body is crushed to a volume of approximately twelve cubic feet. The crushed body is loaded onto a rail car destined for a smelting facility in Pittsburgh. The rail car departs on June 3, 2010.

On June 15, 2010, Frank Callahan enters the garage alone. He sits on a stool approximately thirty inches from my position on the engine stand. He remains seated for two hours and forty-seven minutes. During this time, he does not touch any tool, any part, or any surface other than the stool and the floor. His physical position is unchanged throughout the duration. The only measurable physical change in the environment is a decrease in ambient temperature from seventy-three degrees to sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, consistent with the natural cooling of the building after sunset.

On September 1, 2010, Frank Callahan enters the garage with another man, identified as Ray. Frank lifts me from the engine stand. I weigh approximately four hundred and seventy-five pounds, less the weight of components removed during earlier disassembly. He carries me to the bed of a pickup truck parked outside. The truck is a 1998 Ford F-150. The odometer reading at the time of loading is 214,889 miles.

On September 2, 2010, the pickup truck arrives at a purchaser's address in Hermitage, Pennsylvania. The purchaser identifies himself as a collector of vintage automotive components. He inspects me and finds the casting date and matching numbers consistent with a desirable restoration platform. Currency is exchanged in the amount of eight hundred dollars.

On October 10, 2010, I am disassembled, cleaned, inspected, and reassembled with new pistons, new rings, new bearings, and a new camshaft. The new components are manufactured to specifications that match my original design parameters. The technician who performs this work uses a torque wrench set to specifications published in the 1972 Chevrolet service manual. The torque pattern is symmetrical.

My date stamp is still visible on the crankshaft: March 14, 1972. My serial number matches the vehicle's original build sheet. My cylinder walls show cross-hatching consistent with proper break-in procedure. The new owner starts the engine and it idles smoothly at 750 RPM. The temperature gauge indicates normal operating temperature. The oil pressure gauge indicates forty-five pounds per square inch.

I am a machine. I do not remember Tommy Callahan. I do not remember the night of the accident. I do not remember the circuit board or the signals it sent or the impact that stopped my rotation at 6,823 RPM. I have been rebuilt and I function within design specifications. The present does not contain the past. The past exists only as physical traces, as asymmetrical torque patterns and repaired fracture lines and replacement components that do not match the original build date.

I am an engine block. I have no story. I have only physical changes, and physical changes are a kind of language if you know how to read them. But language requires a reader, and the readers are all gone now. Tommy is dead. Frank is old. Ray has moved away. And the engine sits in a restored Camaro, waiting for the next driver to turn the key and send signals through the new wiring harness, signals that will instruct me to burn fuel and produce power and rotate, signals that contain no memory of anything that came before.

I do not feel. But I am here.