Jeremy and his six-year-old son were flat-bellied on the floor pushing little cars through the thick terrain of gray living room carpet. Jeremy joked and spoke for the cars in silly voices, fashioning a distinct, albeit one-dimensional, personality for every one of the gleaming candy-colored vehicles. Cooper’s delighted high-pitched giggles filled the small home with contented glee.
Jeremy was careful with the boy, gentle; he wanted Cooper to feel safe, happy, and loved. Like many parents, Jeremy sought to correct the mistakes his parents made with him through his child, to give the boy a childhood that would better prepare him for the world, or, at least, to remind him that the world didn’t have to be quite so cold. The only problem, of course, is that the world is pretty damned chilly, and we can’t always be prepared for what it offers.
Jeremy had music going in the background, some 70s pop rock playlist soundtracking time with his son. He could never be comfortable in silence, Jeremy’s Achilles heel as it turns out, because if Jeremy wasn’t playing music, or at least not so loudly, while on the floor with Cooper, he would have heard Marissa’s car humming up the driveway. Or he would have heard her struggling with the lock on the door that had a habit of sticking. Or he would have heard her exhausted sigh when she plopped her things on the kitchen counter as she made her way to the living room. But Cat Stevens’ “Wild World” was blasting from the Bluetooth speaker and Jeremy didn’t hear any of that. What he did hear was Marissa’s horrified yelp when she spotted him playing cars with the Holodeparted of their son on the carpet.
“Mom?” Cooper asked, a wrinkle of concern denting his soft forehead.
“Jeremy, turn it off.”
“Mommy, are you mad?”
“Jeremy. Off.”
“Sorry,” Jeremy started. “I thought you were working late tonight.”
“Off. Off. Jeremy, off!”
Jeremy climbed to his knees and stroked the particles of light that had congealed and compacted to such a degree that they took on the weight and texture of the downy softness of a six-year-old boy’s mop of hair. With his free hand, he reached out across the floor and picked up the Holojector, a thin, gleaming white disc pleasingly neutral in its simple design.
“Look, buddy, Mom and I need to…”
“Turn it fucking off,” Marissa begged.
Jeremy fumbled with the device until finding the power button and deactivated the holoprojection just as it had finished saying “I love you, Daddy.” Jeremy looked up to Marissa who, red-eyed, shot across the living room floor into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Jeremy scanned the room vacantly, momentarily indecisive, and quickly picked up and packed away the toys. He then tentatively padded over to Marissa’s door, which seemed to regard him with supercilious contempt. Lightly, Jeremy knocked on the door.
“So, I’ll get dinner going, okay?” Jeremy said, hesitating at the door for an answer. But Jeremy only received Marissa’s muffled sobs in reply.
Marissa’s palms were clammy in Dr. Hruby’s office during Cooper’s physical exam. The itchy lavender lambswool cardigan chafed against the skin of her shoulders, mildly irritating her every time she shifted position. She would often lament the decision to wear that sweater on that day as it distracted her from the examination. Marissa liked to think of herself as a good and attentive mother, but parental duties often drove her mad from boredom. Hruby had been Cooper’s physician since birth and Marissa was always impressed by his calm and slightly acerbic bedside manner. His subtle grumpiness somehow reassured her, not to say that he was bad with Cooper—far from it; in fact, he was jocular and firm with the boy—but every action was delivered with an impatient weariness that reinforced the rote character of the appointment. Marissa took comfort in the quotidian nature of her son’s physical check-ups.
“You’ve been pretty tired?” Hruby asked Cooper.
“A little,” Cooper shyly answered. Dr. Hruby turned to Marissa for confirmation.
“He’s been lethargic lately. He says he’s okay, but we wanted to bring him in just in case.”
“Well, we’re going to have to do some blood work. Do you know what that means, Cooper?” Dr. Hruby asked with a sly smile. Cooper shook his head. “It means, we’re going to take some of your blood, like a vampire! Mwah-hah!”
Cooper was a brave sport about the whole thing. He sat patiently as the blood tech found his vein and pierced it. Cooper watched in fascination as the blood streamed from his arm and into the plastic tube.
Afterward, Marissa treated Cooper to lunch at McDonald’s. They sat outside; the day was gorgeous in its spring fervor of light and life re-entering the world after an uncharacteristically long Florida winter.
“You weren’t scared?” Marissa asked as she extracted a satisfyingly long French fry from its red cardboard sleeve.
“No! It was cool!” Cooper answered.
This is the moment Marissa often retreats to when Cooper’s stark absence becomes too oppressive. She remembers the cool breeze on her naked shoulders, having discarded the sweater, mingling with the pleasant warmth of the sun on her skin; Cooper’s smile as he meticulously pulled fry after fry from his meal box, taking his time, even at five, to savor their salty crunch and—perhaps this more in hindsight—the irritating twinge of worry as she inspected the dark circles around his eyes.
Jeremy cracked an egg into the blue ceramic mixing bowl they bought at a neighborhood yard sale years ago—before Cooper, before marriage; when they were twenty-somethings learning that to share a life is to navigate the other’s ego. After a bumpy start, they were settling into an epoch of domestic bliss. More than the wedding or the vows or rings that were exchanged, the blue bowl signified to Jeremy a soldering of two individual selves and the birth of a new, singular unit.
Marissa stumbled out into the kitchen, weak and refreshed after a long, good cry and watched as Jeremy diced a red pepper with the Kyocera knife they bought in an extravagant shopping spree after closing on their house. Although he made simple meals, she was always thankful that Jeremy was a passably good cook. He had lost the drive to cook after Cooper’s passing, but since purchasing the Holodeparted a few months ago, Jeremy had demonstrated a renewed interest in the domestic chores of married life. She was glad to see the old vigor and joy reignited in her husband, but she knew the cost of this tenuous happiness, knew it to be as fragile as a thawing patch of ice.
It would perhaps be putting too much weight on the metaphor should the blue bowl slip out of Jeremy’s hands and smash to pieces on the tiled kitchen floor, but the bowl did indeed slip from his grasp after he noticed Marissa entering the kitchen from his periphery. A guilt-charged shock of nerves ran through his body, which caused an involuntary twitch in his fingers and briefly arrested his ability to grip the object securely. The blue bowl tumbled to the floor as a hollow feeling flooded Jeremy’s body. Marissa’s gaze bore into his shoulder.
After quickly wetting and wringing a kitchen rag into the sink, Jeremy dropped to the floor and wiped the oozing yolk and albumen from the tiles. Marissa’s hands met his. Looking up, Jeremy noted a hint of amusement in her eyes, which reminded him, as he turned around: yes, the bowl was still intact.
With the floor cleaned, the two stood up. Jeremy washed the bowl out over the sink and Marissa retrieved more eggs from the refrigerator. Jeremy cracked four into the blue bowl, poured a few drops of milk, and began beating them. He scraped the diced vegetables into the bowl, beat everything together, and then poured the mixture onto the frying pan sprayed and heated by Marissa.
“I’m sorry,” Jeremy croaked.
“This has to end, Jer,” Marissa said. She brushed the frizzy brown hair from his eyes and gently turned his chin to face her. “This isn’t good for you, for me. It isn’t good for us. He’s…we need to let Cooper go.”
Aunt Sheila suggested the Holodeparted to Marissa during the bridal shower for Claire, Marissa’s sister. The rest of the party gathered to celebrate Claire’s approaching wedding and studiously avoided any conversation with Maria deeper than griping about weather and TV. But Aunt Sheila was the type to face life with the bluntness and violence of a bull, thus her nickname. Claire anticipated the possible trauma Marissa might suffer from Aunt Sheila’s big mouth and petitioned her mother’s consent to leave her off the guest list.
“We can’t invite her, Mom. Three minutes cornered by The Bull, and Marissa will crack like an egg.”
“If you want to explain to Aunt Sheila why she’s not invited, you’re more than welcome to leave her off your guest list. It’s your shower, do what you want. But I’m not taking that particular bullet for you, hon.”
Not a matador between them, Aunt Sheila retained her place on the guest list. The best Claire and her mother could hope for would be to keep a keen eye trained on Sheila and Marissa’s proximity to each other and execute interception routes accordingly. Of course, the plan, such as it was, fell apart almost immediately. With Claire naturally occupied by party activities and her mother similarly involved in fulfilling matriarchal duties, the two were forced into impotent witness as Sheila gravitated towards Marissa after a particularly raunchy party game that made their mother blush and a recently divorced college friend cry.
With the force and grace of a dirigible careening through the bomb-pocked skyline of Second World War London, Aunt Sheila worked through the dozen and a half party guests towards Marissa, who steeled herself as she clocked Aunt Sheila’s approach. Voluptuous and red-faced, her exorbitant curves suggestive of deep reservoirs of untapped sensuality and aggression, she was dressed in old-fashioned gray sweatpants from a once popular clothing brand named after a color and tight-fitting sky-blue tank top. She pulled Marissa into her thick-armed embrace.
“Come on,” Aunt Sheila said. “Let’s step outside. Get some fresh air and a little privacy.”
They stepped through the sliding glass door out onto the back patio ensconced by a lush variety of potted vegetation. The two ambled over to the cushy patio set with a familiarity that belied their intimate knowledge of the layout of the home of Marissa’s mother. Marissa tapped the side of her glasses to activate the lens tinting. Sheila rifled through her sweatpants pockets to produce a pack of cigarettes and gas station lighter.
“I thought those were illegal,” Marissa said with a sardonic grin.
“Hun, this is Celebration Palms. Illegal don’t exactly mean unavailable.”
Aunt Sheila offered Marissa a cigarette, which Marissa hesitantly accepted. According to the rules of smoker etiquette, Marissa lit up first and Aunt Sheila after. Marissa released a satisfied sigh as she exhaled the first puff, melting with pleasure under the Florida heat. Aunt Sheila was gratified to see Marissa loosen up a little. Ever since her boy passed, the poor thing had been as tight as a muscle knot. Besides working through her own grief, Marissa had been busy dealing with a husband who had completely crumbled. Sheila’s heart certainly went out to her. It was an unfathomable loss to process—two losses, really, the boy and the husband.
Of course, the whole family had been doing what it could to ease Marissa through this awful time, but at the end of the day, what could be done? The fact that Marissa agreed to attend her sister’s bridal shower at all suggested a lifting of clouds, but Sheila read in the stunned, injured black of Marissa’s eyes that pain was only a hair’s breadth from the surface. Remarkable, really, that Marissa was able to leave the house at all.
“So, how you holding up?” Aunt Sheila asked. Marissa couldn’t help but smirk at the Bull’s nervy charge into such a loaded subject. Most of the family vacillated between respect and annoyance by Sheila’s determined insistence to poke and prod under the mask everyone wears in social company, but her sincere desire to help, even if acting as a shoulder to cry on, were often misinterpreted as nosiness and callousness (mostly by the men, Marissa observed). Still, Marissa always admired the Bull’s ability to cut through defenses and find the soft core of a person’s being, nurturing it as tenderly as she dug ferociously to get there.
“Oh, Christ, Sheila, it’s been…” Maria said, letting the sentence linger unfinished. Aunt Sheila pushed her chair around the table, scraping it against the concrete patio, and collected Marissa beneath her right arm. She ashed her cigarette with her free hand and took a long drag, exhaling the smoke along with a hushed, “It’s all right, baby girl. Let it out.” Marissa melted into her aunt’s embrace, as Sheila finished her cigarette and lit up a fresh one.
Aunt Sheila asked Marissa if she heard about some new product on the market— she had seen something about it on CBS Sunday Morning—that was supposed to help people process their grief. “It’s like some Star Trek tech,” Aunt Sheila said. “Practically lets you talk to the dead. It’s called a Holodeparted; look into it. Might be worth a shot. I kinda wish they had something like that for Dad back in the day—he was only a kid when his father committed suicide.”
Marissa muscled through a few remaining snuffles. “Holodeparted?”
Holodeparted was touted as the perfect synthesis of the burgeoning holograph tech that had been rapidly replacing old entertainment devices such as flat screen televisions, game consoles, smart phones, and virtual reality sets. With a more robust and nuanced A.I., the Holodeparted could deliver what its founders coined a “truly immersive human experience.” Of course, none of these new technologies would have been possible even ten years earlier without the abundant energy produced by nuclear fusion. The pitch was simple: the bereaved meets with a “holo-tech” for an in-depth multi-part interview process (apparently, this process could be quite protracted, lasting weeks, if not months) in which the holo-tech guides the bereaved through intricate and rigorous questioning about the departed in order to form a detailed and accurate personality profile to feed into the Holodeparted’s A.I. On the backend, coders program physical specs into the Holodeparted (photographs, medical charts, the personal memories of the bereaved) to produce a composite physical likeness of the departed that would not only appear the same as the departed, but would also feel and smell like the departed as well. Additionally, the Holodeparted featured predictive intelligence that would allow the departed to “grow” in real time, as though Death’s steely scythe had never cleaved life from reality at all.
Marissa was half through dressing for work when she caught sight of her pregnant belly reflected in the mirror. Despite being well into her third trimester, and a mere two weeks from maternity leave, these visual reminders of her impending relaunch into motherhood continued to catch her off guard. Strangely, the physical sensations rarely did—the baby’s movements (gymnastic at times) of course couldn’t help but remind Marissa of her first pregnancy, but they could just as easily be disguised by the mind’s willful suspension of reality as the gastrointestinal complaints of a large meal or queasy anxiety. But the thought of tiny hands and feet pressing against skin from within her ballooning frame only reminded her of the loss suffered years previously. She could never quite prepare herself for the visual confirmation that she would be a mother again.
Out of breath, Marissa sat on the edge of her bed, her black maternity pantsuit slacks unbuttoned, a crisp, white Christian Dior “power” blouse draped over her tense, sensitive belly. With Cooper, she took a certain amount of pride in her naked belly, as contained inside were a multiplicity of bright possible futures (Marissa’s former implacable faith in what we might call fate wouldn’t allow for the possibility of disappointment). But now, the same image conjured dizzying combinations of infinite possible tragedies and something akin to survivor’s guilt. How could she leave Cooper behind? Or Jer? But no, she reminded herself, she wasn’t replacing anyone, and she wouldn’t forget; there’s no good in living in the past.
To his credit, Louis demonstrated remarkable patience with her throughout everything. He accommodated her request for a small wedding despite his mother’s visions for a more extravagant affair and dutifully attended to her conflicting desires and needs throughout the pregnancy (not to mention his unwavering support throughout the long, messy divorce from Jeremy). In fact, that Louis was so unconditionally responsive to her fluctuating moods at times annoyed Marissa, as it only seemed to confirm her attachment to him as an act of survival rather than love (or, at least the kind of love she shared with Jeremy). Not that Louis was some sort of hapless pushover. No, his was a pragmatism and discipline tempered by compassion and genuine care, unyielding in his desire to provide comfort and support. It’s how Marissa once thought of herself before what she had come to refer sardonically to as “the loss,” which only contributed to her overwhelming sense of guilt. Somehow, she had now come to occupy the neurotic half of the “put-together and complete-mess” couple that once defined the special symmetry of her relationship with Jeremy.
But Jeremy had no Louis, which is to say, he no longer had Marissa, and was off drifting in the sea alone with nothing to cling to. She received sporadic reports concerning Jeremy’s well-being from friends, but few seemed particularly optimistic. He continued devoting his free time to “caring” for the Holodeparted of Cooper, but part of this caring meant maintaining a clean record at his job as a textbook sales representative throughout Central Florida. Before Cooper (the real one) passed away, Jeremy was an enthusiastic fifth grade math teacher, but working with kids grew too painful for him after the loss. This new position allowed him to tap into his field of knowledge while also making a more comfortable salary than before. Apparently, he took the Holodeparted with him for nights out of town during client site visits, so he was never far from Cooper.
Marissa had a morbid curiosity about the status of Jeremy’s relationship to the Holodeparted these days. Despite his addiction to the device (or, at least this is how Marissa saw it; by reducing Jeremy’s mania to that of tech worship, rather than paternal care, she could more easily justify her decision to move on), and the corrosive effect it had on their relationship, she couldn’t help but wonder how “Cooper” was getting along as he continued “aging.” They had chosen the “maturation” option for their Holodeparted, so in theory, “Cooper” should be about sixteen years old now. However, that would require quite a bit of data storage, and as Holodeparted had gone under two years ago (following a lengthy legal battle concerning fair use laws, identity protection, and questions of autonomy for Artificial Intelligence), it was unclear as to how Jeremy was facilitating the continued use of their Holodeparted device. Certainly, Jeremy had always had an aptitude for tech, but keeping “Cooper” up and running seemed above even Jeremy’s abilities.
Still, Marissa received odd reports from friends having run into Jeremy and “Cooper” at ball games, grocery stores, the beach, etcetera. With the flurry of activities surrounding her pregnancy, thus putting her in contact with seemingly endless networked tendrils of friends and acquaintances, news of Jeremy seemed to be coming at her at ever-quickening pace in the recent months. Everyone Marissa spoke to found Jeremy’s relationship with the boy unsettling and had even taken to referring to Jeremy as Geppetto in an effort to ironically distance themselves from what they interpreted as a complete break from sanity. Truth be told, Marissa half-wished she could close the door on that part of her life permanently; she wanted to shut out the pain and remorse that often threatened to overwhelm her when she was reminded of Jeremy’s fragile mental state. She was only somewhat buoyed by the fact that in all of the reports Jeremy seemed his affable old self, even happy, but it was precisely his supposed happiness that struck her as most alarming and ultimately served as her reason for leaving him in the first place. It was as if Jeremy had so fully invested himself in the care of the programmed holo-representation of Cooper that their real child had been completely erased and replaced.
No, Marissa, beyond any other duty in her life, was fully committed to preserving the memory of the sweet boy she had birthed, nursed, healed, and raised; the boy who cried during thunderstorms and danced like a monkey to old hip-hop songs; the boy who loved math (like his father); the boy whose courage and compassion was so great, it was his hand that fell limp on her head in a final comforting gesture before he slipped off into nothingness. No, nothing would replace him. Not this new child she could feel kicking for life inside her and certainly not some pixelated program of light and wires.
However, a recent run-in with her sister’s husband’s brother (Marissa wasn’t sure what that made them) Dan, revealed that perhaps Jeremy’s quixotic attempt to stave off grief was crumbling. Dan said that he saw Jeremy in the Bardmoor Publix parking lot, sitting in his Toyota, crying and yelling—or maybe singing—all while blasting some old rock song. Whatever tender thread of sanity Jeremy had been clinging onto, Dan confided, seemed to have finally snapped.
Jeremy, Marissa thought as she rose from the bed. She had considered reaching out to him after hearing from Dan but ultimately decided against it. In the mirror, she looked at herself and contemplated the new life gestating inside her. The past was the past, and this was the future—a future that required careful tending. And so, Marissa did what she had learned worked best; she took the lingering memory of care and longing for both Jeremy and Cooper and locked it up deep inside of her. Finished dressing, she squared herself for the coming day. She took one more look at herself in the mirror, admiring the authority she exuded in her power suit and the slight vulnerability her pregnant belly conceded, and allowed herself a sincere smile, pausing only momentarily to consider the possibilities for love and joy contained within her, before straightening up and heading out to meet the day.
Holodeparted Personality Intake Interview
Client Names:
Jeremy Baker. Relation to Deceased: Father
Marissa Kramer-Baker. Relation to Deceased: Mother
Interviewer: This process is understandably painful for our clients, so we like to begin by reminding everyone that this is absolutely integral to building a strong Holodeparted profile and delivering as mimetic a representation as possible. Before we begin, I must ask, are both of you mentally and emotionally capable of proceeding with the intake interview?
MKB: Yes
JB: Uh…yeah.
Interviewer: Describe the deceased.
MKB: Don’t you have the pictures and videos we sent?
JB: We sent a lot of stuff.
I: Yes, but we want to know how you saw and experienced the deceased. This is important for delivering a mimetic experience.
MKB: Well, he was about six-and-a-half when he died.
JB: He was becoming a boy.
I: How do you mean?
JB: Well, through the toddler years, kids are still kind of like…oh, I don’t know, like big babies. [To MKB] Does that make sense?
MKB: [To JB] Yes, I get what you’re saying.
JB: But, at around five-and-a-half or six, they begin to look like little kids. He—Cooper—was just starting to look like a little boy. He was a little boy.
I: Mmm-hmm.
MKB: He had brown hair that usually stayed on the longish side.
JB: He was kind of like me—a slightly olive complexion.
MKB: He had kind hands.
I: Kind hands?
JB: Yes.
MKB: You asked.
I: Kind hands.
JB: He had, like, crazy arms.
MKB: [Laughing] Monkey arms.
JB: We called him “little monkey.”
MKB: Bright hazel eyes. Almost translucent.
I: Okay, this is all helpful. Now, describe who the deceased was. Likes, dislikes, etcetera.
MKB: He was six years old.
JB: He was bright for his age. He asked a lot of questions.
MKB: Don’t most kids that age do the same?
JB: Yes, but his were more, I don’t know, piercing.
I: Piercing?
JB: Yes, he liked to get to the bottom of things. Wanted to understand the substance of life.
MKB: The substance of life? He wasn’t Socrates.
JB: Why are you…?
MKB: What?
JB: Nothing. He liked to know things, okay?
MKB: He was…thoughtful. He cared about others’ feelings.
JB: He didn’t like to see people in pain.
MKB: Remember that one roommate he had at the hospital? I think he had sickle cell or something. Cooper once offered him his pain meds.
JB: Luckily, we caught him. That kid could have overdosed.
MKB: He was willing to suffer so the other kid could feel better.
JB: Yes.
MKB: Not that he was perfect, of course. He lied a lot.
JB: He had a healthy imagination.
MKB: He would steal sometimes. From stores. A little shoplifter.
JB: One time. He stole one time. Publix. Some cheap toy, like Silly Putty or something.
MKB: No, he only succeeded one time. I had to reprimand him repeatedly.
JB: What?
MKB: On little shopping excursions. You usually bowed out. Like, at Target or something. I would see him pocket something and make him put it back.
JB: He was a kid.
MKB: And he had a real temper.
JB: He was spirited.
MKB: Didn’t like being told what to do.
JB: Who does?
MKB: That’s our job, or it’s supposed to be. We must tell him what to do. You’re such a marshmallow.
JB: And here we go again.
MKB: It’s okay. I’m the disciplinarian. The bad guy. I took on that role.
JB: Would you have been happier if I beat him? Gave him spankings?
MKB: That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.
I: If we could keep on subject.
[Silence]
MKB: I remember one time, he screamed at me with tears in his eyes. Screamed. I wouldn’t let him stay up to watch cartoons. Tears in his eyes, red-faced, screaming, “You’re not fair, Mommy!”
JB: You’re making him sound like a psycho.
MKB: He was a kid. Kids do these things. His kindergarten teacher said the same thing. He would lose it when they practiced handwriting. Hated it. Yelled at the teacher.
JB: Goddammit, Marissa, why are you saying all this?
I: Perhaps we should do this another time.
MKB: No, I can’t do this again.
JB: Let’s just…he was a good kid.
MKB: He was wonderful, he was terrible. Kind, and a complete shit. And I want him, all of him. Do you understand what we’re doing here, Jeremy?
[Silence]
MKB: They are going to take what we say and bring him back to us, and I want all of him back. Not just the good. I want Cooper back. This hurt—this ache—it…I can’t live with it. Only Cooper, the real Cooper, can take it away. Not some sunshiny, bullshit version. Do you understand, Jeremy? Tell me you understand. I need to know we’re on the same page.
[Silence]
JB: I understand.
I: Let’s take a quick break, and then we’ll proceed.
END INTAKE INTERVIEW SESSION ONE
Cooper was indifferent to the package delivered earlier in the afternoon that had made his father so happy. Sprawled out on his bed as heavy metal pounded mercilessly through his speakers, he lay entranced within the cocoon of thunderous drone permeating the air. Cooper watched the clock that hung on the wall facing his bed. One of several clocks that hung or stood across the room. Time was important. His father was in the process of fixing the home Holojector, the more powerful one, so they wouldn’t need to rely so much on the temperamental portable projectors. They tended to overheat if in use for too long. After a couple of hours, their projection capabilities grew unstable, either freezing the projected imaging indefinitely or fizzling out and disappearing the imaging altogether. The trick was to keep track of time and switch between Holojectors to avoid the malfunctions. These were only the most recent inescapable pieces of evidence pointing to Cooper’s lack of material substance. The evidence proving he was not real.
“Of course you’re real,” his dad would argue. “You have feelings, don’t you? Your own mind? What else makes a person ‘real?’”
“A body,” Copper would counter.
“The body is nothing. It’s the mind that makes us human.”
“My mind isn’t even my own, it’s programmed with someone’s memories and personality. I’m just software.”
“Then we’re all just software,” his dad would argue, and then pull him into an embrace that Cooper could not feel.
Jeremy had always been something of a techie. He loved tinkering with electronics, both old and new. At fourteen he had rehabilitated a Tandberg TR 3030 AM/FM stereo receiver that had traveled down through the generations only to wind up dust-covered on a shelf in the garage. It proved a real labor of love, and after weeks of skimming through audio chat forums he found online, he was able to slowly gather the parts necessary to restore the ancient machinery to pristine working condition. This experience fostered in Jeremy not only a confidence in the idea that anything can be fixed with enough resilience and cunning, but also a desire to know and understand how the world, and things belonging to the world, worked. As a teacher, he tried to instill this insatiable thirst for knowledge in his students, and as a salesperson, he touted his wares as providing answers for those unquenchable minds. The truth, much to his chagrin, was that most of his students lacked any curiosity about the clockwork machination of things in the world, and all people really wanted out of textbooks were cheap, yet authoritative, conveyances of information. Jeremy often felt alone but had learned to thrive within the solitary confines of his mind.
Until.
The loss of his son seriously challenged Jeremy’s belief that anything could be fixed, although that belief had faltered at times, especially after its foundations weathered the daily assaults from an ever-growing disinterested and complacent student body. Like an early Christian, however, it was the marked aggression to his belief in knowledge that made him cling ever more determinedly to it. It was perhaps losing that, more than the actual loss itself, that led Jeremy into the deep dark well of depression. He had lost his son, yes, but also the very foundations on which his sense of self and universe were built. For months he lived life as though he were only witnessing existence from the bottom of a pool: in it, yet separate, the world perceptible, but disorienting and unreal. The arrival of holographic technology in his life resuscitated both his lost child and his belief in knowledge.
Of course, with belief comes zealotry. He idolized his re-born son along with the technology that facilitated the miracle. He spent hours playing with his child in paternal devotion as well as from scientific curiosity. Within weeks, he completely understood the scientific principles that led to the Holodeparted’s functionality, as well as the mechanical praxis that made the device work. This renewed interest in life, however, yielded a further shutting away from the world, rather than a revived interest in living in it. Jeremy grew completely disinterested in his job, which, confusingly, led to higher sales. With a touch of disappointment, Jeremy deduced it was his enthusiasm in the products that he sold that blunted his salesmanship, and it was only in distracted, insouciant presentations that school boards could glean the value of the texts offered. And then, of course, Marissa left, which troubled him a great deal, but….
Oh, but what joy to have been given a second chance! Father and son were inseparable. Once the portable Holojectors hit the market (Jeremy waited in a line for three days anxious for the opportunity to purchase one), he was able to live the life about which he had fantasized since Marissa revealed the results of her at-home test. They played catch in the yard, went to ball games and the park, argued at the grocery store, and enacted dozens, no, hundreds of normal parent-child rituals throughout the boy’s upbringing. It was a miracle, Jeremy decided, a dream come true. But dreams only last so long. Sooner or later one must wake up.
Cooper knew that he was different from the other children. They went to school while their parents worked, whereas he entered a kind of sleep state when his father wasn’t around. The other children weren’t tethered to a small disc that restricted their movement. The children he played with at the parks, or bumped into at stores or outdoor events were flesh and blood, not warmed up particles of light condensed into matter. He didn’t think much of it at first, as his father diligently kept Cooper to his studies and showered him with all the warmth and protection enjoyed by other kids. Plus, weren’t all families a little different from each other? But not long after his thirteenth birthday, he began experiencing glitches. Moments suspended in action and thought, signals disrupted and shut down, Cooper lived totally at the whims of fickle technology. With the growing awareness of his physical limitations, Cooper grew concurrently resentful of the mother who abandoned him. He regretted that he wasn’t enough to keep her around. His temper rose at the slightest provocation, and though he loved his father, he couldn’t help but feel a naked contempt for the man who condemned Cooper to live this life on the periphery. Inside him, a churning volcano of hurt, anger, disappointment, and sadness threatened to blow.
All these things—the loss, the limitations of his liminal existence, the anger he fought so hard to bite back on—scuttled through his mind as he lay saturated in the aggressive music that filled his room. Eyes on the clock, he stood from his bed and went to his dresser, on top of which sat the portable Holojectors that allowed him life, meager though it might have been. The dresser stood against the wall that separated his room from the hallway that led to the living room. From the living room, where his father had been working on the home projector, a plaintive moaning leaked in through the cacophony.
He went to the old stereo system his father had gifted him and turned the music down. His father was crying again. Cooper reasoned that the part he ordered failed to fix the problem. What to do? Cooper had been preparing himself for this possibility. Had the tech that supported his life simply gone out of style, there would perhaps be more options, more replacement parts on the used market to fix the issues that plagued the Holojectors, but not only was the technology rejected by society, it was legally prohibited. This made replacement parts both rare and exorbitantly expensive. Cooper knew that it would only be a matter of time until there were no options available. The portable Holojectors, too, would crap out. Soon, he would die. Cooper opened the door of his room, reached over to pick up his Holojector, but just as his fingers grazed the dull, beat-up disc, he fizzled out and disappeared.
Jeremy heard the door creak open, and it was only then that he noticed the dull thud of heavy music had dissipated as well.
“Coop?” he called. No answer. Jeremy dried his eyes and blew his nose. He collected himself and got to the feet that were unconsciously carrying him through the living room, down the hall, and to Cooper’s empty bedroom.
“Cooper?”
Jeremy held the warm Holojector in his hand and pushed the power button, but the thing made only a rough hum. Picking up the second Holojector, he realized it had been turned off, but not long ago since it was still slightly warm. The damn things were acting up again. He calmly placed the two devices on the dresser and walked to the stereo system. His old Tandberg. Jeremy’s right fist shot at the stereo receiver and then his second, and then he repeated the action, and then again, and again until both fists were bloody and raw. Jeremy fell to his knees and folded himself over his wounded fists just as Cooper beamed back into the room.
“Dad?” Cooper said. He looked over at his stereo and saw the blood. He rested his hand on his father’s shoulder.
“I can’t do it, Coop. That thing is burnt,” Jeremy said.
“I know,” Cooper said.
“And those are on their last legs.”
“I know.”
“Can’t fix them, either.”
“Dad.”
Cooper knelt over his father and held him. The two swayed back and forth. Cooper knew that his time had come. He’d never been sure how he would feel when that inevitable moment arrived, but now that it had, he felt a sweeping sense of relief and serenity wash over him.
“Why don’t we go to the beach? I’d like to see the waves,” Cooper said. Trancelike, Jeremy climbed to his feet. He turned to Cooper and held the boy’s face in his hands, the boy he thought he had saved. He nodded his head.
The sky was a pastel blur of pink, violet, and blue as the sun fell into the ocean. Jeremy and Cooper sat on the beach in silence as the waves lapped against the sand. The gentle, far-off cawing of seagulls carried through the air. Jeremy twiddled his toes through the coarseness of the sand, thinking dimly that his son could not share in this oddly compelling sensation. Cooper had grown; he was nearly a man now. This realization dawned on him intermittently, as though in his mind’s eye, Cooper would permanently be the sweet six-year-old boy he lost a decade ago.
“I’m proud of you,” Jeremy said, “if that means anything.”
“It does,” Cooper said with a muted smile.
“You sure about this?” Jeremy asked.
Cooper thought for a moment and looked out onto the horizon.
“Do you remember what mom used to say about the sunset? You could hear the sun sizzle as it dipped into the ocean. It took me a while to realize that wasn’t true. It was just a play of the imagination. But, true or not, for a long time, I really could hear it sizzle. Do you know why?”
Jeremy gave his son a confused shrug of the shoulders.
“Because I wanted it to be true.”
“And now?”
“There’s no sizzle, Dad,” Cooper said as he stood up.
Cooper collected the Holojectors from the sand and carried them to the water. Jeremy followed his son up to the shoreline. Around them, children played in the surf as parents watched from the beach. An old couple lounged in beach chairs sipping wine. The seagulls cawed as the sun slowly sank into the ocean against a vibrant violet sky. Cooper walked into the surf.
“My first time in the ocean,” Cooper said, exhilarated.
“What do you think?” Jeremy asked.
“Well, I can’t feel anything, of course, but I imagine it’s warm and heavy like a distant memory of our collective primordial past.”
Jeremy laughed at that and nodded his head. Cooper looked at his father and mouthed “I love you,” surveyed his surroundings to confirm no one was in his proximity and dropped the Holojectors into the water. Nothing happened at first, and Cooper regarded his father with a wry smile, but then he froze in a static bemused pose. He blinked in and out of space until a white flash erupted from the surf and Cooper disappeared completely.
“No,” Jeremy whispered. He stood there for a moment, as though he himself were nothing more than a static image. Jeremy waited for some emotion to arrive. Anger, sadness, anything really, but instead, he felt tamed by an overwhelming numbness. Body heavy and soul dimmed, Jeremy turned back from the ocean, took three tentative steps toward the beach parking lot, and stopped. Turning back again, he found the image of his son as a six-year-old in the surf smiling and waving a final goodbye. Jeremy collapsed onto the sand. My boy, my boy, my beautiful boy.
