“Lettuce,” by A@ron What

Aug 20th, 2012 | By | Category: Fiction, Prose

Despite my great desire, I could not have biological children.  I lacked an available uterus to inseminate, so I downloaded an app.  For a while, my daughter and I were happy.  I would feed her lettuce when needed, as indicated by an alarm trigged by her digital algorithm.  I brought her to the zoo, etc. and she was bewildered, etc. at the vast diversity of animals, etc. in this amazing world.  Then she got hacked.  I tried to recover her, but someone stole my smartphone.  Fortunately, as all responsible parents do, I had backed her up.

But her backup program was never the same.  Was the clone’s DNA the same?  Yes.  Did I expose her to the identical experiences, to shape her development?  Yes.  But beyond her monochromatic, pixilated eyes, there was no sparkle, no excitement when I fed her lettuce, etc.  I grew resentful of my daughter for not being herself, though I knew it was not her fault.  However, like all responsible parents, I forced myself to go through the motions of fostering a loving and supportive educational environment, etc., even if my heart was not in it.  After my daughter turned eighteen, and finally took off from our nest to find her place in the world, I was able to find peace with myself.  Although I did not love her, I had emulated loving her, and she had learned to feed lettuce to herself.

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A@ron What is a top-ranking agent of The Deception. His or her talents include insincerity and misdirection.

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