The head of Annabel’s mother arrived on a Friday. Annabel had ordered the custom product many months back, nearly a year after her mother’s death, and then forgot about it. Whenever USPS or Amazon or FedEx left a package at her door, Annabel became a child again, tearing open packages with an eager smile. What did I get? But unlike years ago, she was less likely to be disappointed nowadays. Just what I wanted. Just what I needed. Except when it was clothing that didn’t fit, or shoes she had to return. And almost every day, it was something new. Vitamins, toothpaste, socks, sports bras, new pens, rejuvenating oils, cures for indigestion, easy remedies for stress.
Today it was the Human Replicas box with her mother’s head. Oh, Mom, it’s been so long.
It looked just like her mother, too, so much so that Annabel wondered if maybe she should have paid extra for the torso or gone all out and ordered the full body. She imagined sitting her mother’s body up in the orange chair in her living room, under the rhinoceros lamp her mother had hated so much. Wait until I die before you hang that piece of crap! They would joke about it now.
Annabel had seen the advertisements, all the ways you can bring the dead back to life. The latest in technology. Cloning. AI. No one’s ever really dead, not in this day and age! The ad for Human Replicas had promised closure. Grief no more. And love. Just like the real thing!
After pulling her mother’s head out of the box, Annabel set it on the allocated shelf, then tried to feel what she thought she should feel, willed herself to feel it—the affection the marketing had guaranteed. Or your money back! And maybe she did feel it. She sat in silence for a moment, waiting. Then she turned on the news, half-watching while she scrolled through her social media, alert to the pop-ups in her feed: the crotchless panties, CBD gummies, all the fixes for back pain, and a new one, a pill she’d never heard of and wasn’t sure how to pronounce. Alone? You don’t have to be.
She clicked on “Shop now.”
