I am bent over the sink washing my face when a tiny siren wails from my chest. Sonder has been watching me from the bathroom doorway, and at this he throws his coon-hound head back and runs baying toward the window in search of the source. Well, shit, I think, as I pause to assess my pulse. Sonder and I are still getting to know each other, learning our respective ticks and tocks, so he has no idea that the siren is coming from a small bionic box in my chest, an ICD/pacemaker implanted there to help regulate the many rhythms of my unpredictable heart.
Sixty beats and steady; “it’s not me, it’s you,” I tell the machine. By now Sonder has returned from the window. I pick up the remote device that enables me
