For, I think, the fifth time in its history, we have need of a tie-breaker to decide the winner of the 300 Word Challenge.Congratulations to all entrants, and especially to the two -- Astro Pen and Phyrebrat -- whose stories are still in the hunt.
The rules for the tie-break are simple:
Each member has only one vote to cast
No member may vote for his or her own story
The poll will close at 11.59pm GMT on Sunday, 20 February, 2021
Please keep comments to the Discussion thread -- any comments posted here will be moved.
And now for the stories, in the order of posting:
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Here, inside. by Astro Pen
I didn't think it was real love. Me and the therapeutic replica of my dear departed wife.
The technology was impressive. Sensitised Neolatex skin, voice that whispered sweetly at night and croaked slightly in the morning.
Emma had agreed to the memory copy as she lay in the cancer ward. I didn't expect much, maybe a few "Remember when we..." token memories.
It rode a bicycle , chose wallpaper, was slow in the morning, all like Emma. Even danced her foxtrot, clipping around the dance floor.
I actually felt guilty at the first kiss. More so as we became lovers.
Then it happened:
"I want my old job back." It said.
"But that's stupid, you're a ..."
"I'm a what, David?"
"A replica. A very good one, but just a machine."
It adopted a distressed expression.
"Jeez David I thought you had worked it out. Do I actually have to say it? It's ME. I just have a synthetic body. I'm still with you and I love you so much."
"But Emma's dead. You are just her scanned memory!" I blurted, in shock.
"No," she started to cry. "You don't understand, even THEY don't understand. The memory is the person."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I didn't die, they just transferred me from the wet brain to the holochip. I'm still here like I always was."
I understood. Realisation came, an epiphany. This would take time. I wept over hurtful things I had said.
"Honey, you can't get your job back, you don't exist as a legal entity."
"Oh, just set up a design consultancy and front it, I can run it."
"Crazy, but you always were."
We hugged.
Suddenly she started to cry again, huge sobs.
"What?"
"I, - I just can't bear to watch you getting old."
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Third Player by Phyrebrat
In a Devon chapel, surrounded by trees pressing so close the quality of light inside takes on the aspect of being underwater, we wait. I’ve always waited. She did things in her own time; this moonlight wedding was testimony enough.
Eventually, the organ swells and she appears at the narthex, framed by notes. Even over its blast you can feel the intake of breath, an anticipatory silence.
There she is, walking to her appointment with the man her parents are delighted she’s marrying. I get the idea she’s not human, but a translation of the Gospels in human form; female Messiah.
She ignores me. I squat, malingering with unfinished business, in the backmost pew, hidden from the judgement of the congregation’s earthbound eyes.
As she passes, I recall I always considered her taller than I, even though the reverse is true. But the dress that seems somehow upholstered upon her rather than worn, towers above me, its crepe, grey folds as dramatic as the White Cliffs.
Moving imperceptibly, as if only my expectation divines movement, she proceeds from nave to knave. I tell myself her legato is borne from reluctance. She has no love for him: the safe bet; the accountant. What does he know of her needs? What does he know of the touch that electrifies her just below her ear, or how she wriggled with delight under my fingertips?
Can he sit with her in silence in the same room without the need for trivial talk, in a love that transcends words?
It takes a woman to know a woman.
I hang on her words, dreading the “I do”.
Hanging on her words… a sick pun.
As the bouquet is thrown, I return to the lament the keening wind blows over my grave.
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