It Is Sad to Go to Pieces Like This

FICTION

Mom’s memory watch buzzed on her wrist and referred her to a conversation we had last Friday, February 15 at 11:13 am. She squinted at the watch in disbelief.

“That’s not right,” she said. “I don’t remember that at all.”

“That’s the point of the watch, mom,” I said. “To remind you when you forget.”

Her forgetfulness is bad enough to earn it the distinction of disorder, but she’d never put herself in front of someone qualified to say so. I got her the watch thinking it might help. It has a face as big as a tea saucer so even people like my mom—in their seventies with poor eyesight and stubborn tremors—can become dependent on it.

Most mornings she can’t remember how to change the channel or start the coffee so she calls and I come over to do it for her. She’ll ask me how I did it so she can do it herself next time. I show her. It’s pointless. We go through this kind of shit over and over. It’s getting worse.

“It’s like a personal assistant,” I said.

“It’s like a kick in the balls,” she said. “What good is a reminder, if I can’t remember what it’s reminding me of? With no memory, things that never happened and things that did have exactly the same quality. This watch could just be bullshitting me and I wouldn’t know the difference. I need to remember,” she said, poking herself in the head, “not be reminded that I forgot, for chrissake.”

“You skipped the tutorial. You’re not getting the most out of it. Listen,” I said, reaching for the watch, “just swipe—”

Mom yanked her wrist away.

“How am I going to remember all this,” she said, wiggling her fingers at me, “if I can’t remember what I did yesterday?”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I don’t know what to tell me either,” she said.

She nudged her walker over to the window that overlooked the cracked black top of the high school. Some dude was standing all alone in the middle of one of the basketball courts yelling and waving his hands. He was on a call. His ball was rolling around in faculty parking.

When my mom gets quiet like this it usually means she’s about to tell me she wants to die.

“I’m gonna say something. Don’t get weird,” she said.

“I won’t if you won’t,” I said.

“Life can go on too long. Do you understand?”

“I’ve got traps to check,” I said looking towards the door. “Six more houses.”

“Listen to me dammit. I’m not interested in hanging on for dear life. The watch can’t plug the hole. It just vibrates when another part of me vanishes. I don’t want to be here when it’s all gone.”

I tried to look like I wasn't desperate to leave. “Give it a couple days,” I said.

“Are you deaf? I’m talking to you right now.”

“What am I supposed to say? Great idea?”

Mom gets like this most days. Then she forgets and has the same miserable revelation again. I might be the dick son who resents having to look after her and thinks talking to her is a drag because she’s perpetually in the preliminary stages of suicide, but at least I try and keep all that to myself.

“It’s my time,” she said again. “Help me do this.”

“You don’t qualify.”

“Help me.”

“We’ve talked about this.”

My mom’s watch buzzed to notify her that we had in fact talked about this.

She looked at me in disbelief. “I’ve said this before?”

“Like dozens of times.”

“Then for chrissake what’s your problem?” she said. “You’ve got the findings of ‘like dozens’ of independent experts all reaching the same fucking conclusion about what I should do.”

“You don’t qualify,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a program. When you apply, if you’re diagnosed with a memory disorder or depression or anything like that, you’ll be rejected. In order to qualify, you need to be uncoerced and of sound mind. ”

“They only let the happy people die?” she said.

“Talking about letting happy people die only makes you sound bananas. Nobody says that. People say they’re electing to pursue a Life Alternative. If you walk into any Life Alternative Assistance Center and blurt out you want to kill yourself, that would be a major red flag. You might get away with that kind of shit in Switzerland but not here.”

“How do they do it?” she asked. “Is it like with a dog?”

“No. They won’t do it at the Center. After you qualify, they give you some drugs to take home so you can do it yourself. The application process is like a series of those ‘Are you sure?’ boxes. It’s to give you the impression you're probably fucking up.”

“Well let’s get the ball rolling,” she said. “If you vouch for me I bet we could fudge it. Will you vouch for me?”

I’ve tried saying yes to mom in this spot before. I've tried saying no. The result is basically the same.

“Whether I would or not doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’ll forget that you decided to go through with this and we’ll have to start all over again. From scratch. We do this all the time.”

“Bullshit.”

The memory watch buzzed and referred her to 27 prior times we’d reached this point in the conversation.

“That makes you a monster,” she said. “How can you stand by and just watch me slip away? You’re my son.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“Yes you do,” she said.

****

I was in a crawl space refilling a bait station when I got a text from Alba, my 14-year-old, saying she had news to share when I got home. This was unusual because Alba didn’t really share anything at all. With anyone. I had visions of a real-live friend, a bad haircut, even a tattoo or a drug problem would be a welcome sign that she was just a normal kid who might be okay someday.

After I got home I was grabbing a beer from the fridge when Alba appeared in the kitchen.

She was wearing what looked like a big white egg. Just her legs stuck out the bottom in orange tights. The rest of her was hidden inside.

She stood there in silence for a few seconds before the egg squawked like a walkie-talkie. “The unit will fortify humanity against prejudice, misperception and cruelty in their many forms. It will change the world.” The egg had a display for a face. On it THE UNIT scrolled by in block letters.

Up close the whole thing looked patched together from plastic panels and Gorilla Glue. It must’ve weighed a ton. I stepped forward to knock on it with my knuckles. Alba took an unsteady step back.

“The unit ensures a safe zone of thirty inches around its user to reduce the risk of injury and communicable disease,” Alba said.

“What if you really have to go?” I said.

“Go?”

“Can you get out?” I said.

I heard the whine of a fan and the chug of an overtaxed processor.

“I have catheters.”

“Plural?”

“I watched a video.”

I stood there trying to make sense of this as I listened to ice cubes rattling in the freezer. “You made this yourself? Where did you get the parts?”

“I printed them at school.”

“You forgot arm holes,” I said.

“Hand gestures can be misleading. I long to be perfectly understood.”

“And your mic sounds busted.”

“The voice I was born with was not my own. This voice falls within androgynous frequencies and my word choice is optimized to reduce bias. If I wish to express gender, I can do so through an indicator at the unit’s base.”

I looked down and saw an unlit Christmas light where a belly button might’ve been.

“It can represent 100 colors on a spectrum between blue and pink.”

“It’s off,” I said.

“Witness my Principles,” Alba said.

Across the egg’s display a handful of wonderful words scrolled slowly by: EQUALITY, SACRIFICE, COMPASSION, TOLERANCE.

“I have chosen them myself and by doing so made their value intrinsic. These are the words I will live by. I have assigned each of them a numerical value from 1-100 to inform my I/O filters. In this way I can perfectly realize the person I strive to be in exactly the way I wish.”

“That’s it? Four principles?”

“Increasing the number of Principles negatively impacts moral performance.”

****

I’d just finished bagging a big black roof rat when mom called. The rat had chewed through near an inch of asphalt shingle in search of a safe, warm place to sleep.

“Can you hear me?” Mom said.

“Uh-huh,” I said as I tossed the bag in the disposal bin and climbed in my truck.

“My phone’s not working,” she said. Then I heard her dial a few numbers, then silence.

“Mom?”

“Can you hear me? My phone’s not working.”

“I’m not far. I’ll come by.”

When I got there I rang the bell twice. There was no answer so I used the spare key. I called to her, but again no answer. Checked the kitchen, both bedrooms. I finally found her sitting on the bathroom floor next to her walker counting out a handful of old dollar bills.

“What’s all this?” I said.

“Looking for my keys,” she said. The toilet lid was up and it hadn’t been flushed for a while.

“I think they’re in your bedroom,” I said.

“Who?”

“Your keys. How about you go look. Listen, I gotta get back to work.” I actually did. I helped her up. Then I picked up her money and flushed.

The job title on my name tag is Eco-Friendly Pest Control Technician. On the side of my green EV pickup is a big beautiful planet earth and the words “Nature’s Remedy.” In the back of the pickup is a box full of dead animals.

I try not to tell people about my job. It’s shit for an ice breaker. Turns out everybody needs exterminators but nobody wants to meet them. Some people come right out and ask how I can stand being around dead things all the time. I tell them the dead ones don’t bother me at all, it’s the ones that are barely alive that do it.

****

“What about love?” I said. “How’s that for a Principle?”

“Clinical research suggests love is a micro-moment of positivity resonance,” Alba said.

“I think that’s an orgasm,” I said.

Alba turned and walked away down the hall, clipping the kitchen table with her egg and stumbling as she left.

“Orgasms, by the way,” I said following her, “have zero to do with love. Love is when you feel nothing positive whatsoever in the moment but still force yourself to care.”

Alba stopped and turned to face me. Her egg hummed.

“I don’t mean like with you. Love is trimming some old man’s toenails. Soup kitchens, sponge baths. Mother Teresa shit.”

As Alba turned back towards her room, she bumped the wall, knocking down a photo. I stopped to hang it back up. It was of Alba’s mom, Carmelita, with a Cheeto up her nose sitting on the couch holding baby Alba. In the background are people drinking and talking. Dixie cups and rolling papers cover the coffee table.

Carmelita loved to party—it’s how we met. We hooked up twice. That was it. We were already through when Carmelita found out she was pregnant. Neither of us wanted kids, but she was Catholic and she was having it, she said. Seven months after Alba was born, Carmelita went out for ice cream and vape carts and never came back. I hate the fucking picture but Alba won’t let me take it down.

When I get to Alba’s room the door’s open, which it never is. Out of respect for Alba’s privacy (and so I don’t see shit that might call for parenting), I don’t go in there. I hadn’t even peeked inside in months. The room smelled like cling wrap, protective coatings and teenage secrets. In one corner was an enormous wall charger for the egg, which Alba had backed into. In another corner was some kind of giant diaper made of blue gel packs with a computer monitor in front of it. A big cable ran between the charger and the diaper thing.

“I am prepared for love,” Alba said.

On the monitor was a slideshow. I saw glossy purple tomatillos beaded in dew. I saw a close-up of a veiny leaf of Swiss chard. I saw a sweaty thoroughbred cantering majestically in slow-motion. I saw a pink, thickly segmented vacuum flex tube on a black velvet pillow. As the images changed, there remained a value bar on the right hand side of the screen. The bottom of the bar was labeled “CONSENT,” the top “CLIMAX.”

“Jesus. What is this?”

“Pornography,” Alba said.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“It is ethically-sourced and exploitation-free.”

Next to the sex diaper was a joystick, the kind with the big red button on it.

“Through this sensation manipulator any user can stimulate their partner without physical or psychological risk. Feedback is provided via the value bar. The user can eject from the session at any time for any reason with the press of a button.”

“You have one of these in your egg?”

“The unit enables remote, anonymous physical intimacy, regardless of gender or age, untainted by preconceived notions of identity.”

“In this scenario, I’m the one who goes to jail,” I said.

****

It’s dicey visiting mom in the late afternoon. That’s usually when she’s at her worst.

I’d stopped by to bring her some leftover spaghetti. When I pulled up she was rattling her walker down the middle of her quiet little street towards the Boulevard. A plastic grocery bag was dangling from the handlebar.

“What’s up?” I said as I got out of my truck.

“It’s late and I thought I better go,” she said.

“Where to?”

“Home.”

“Home’s right there,” I said, pointing back to her house.

She didn’t even look.

I peeked in the grocery bag. There was a dead portable handset, an old sheet of paper with invalid logins and passwords, and a steak knife. There was also a wallet-size fifth-grade school picture of Alba.

“Maybe you should check your watch to see—“

“Maybe you should shove it up your—“

“I brought spaghetti,” I said.

She took a deep breath and looked up to where the sinking sun was bouncing off the big picture windows high in the foothills. Some dog down the street just wouldn’t stop barking.

“Listen,” she said. “I need your help with something.”

“Hold that thought,” I said, knowing she couldn’t. I held up the Tupperware of spaghetti. “Still warm,” I said. It wasn’t. “Better eat first.”

****

The woman who’d called me about Alba had a house with a circular driveway. It was full of nice cars. I parked on the street.

The front door was open. When I walked up, the woman was introducing Alba to the room. Everybody had glasses of wine and hair they really worked on. Coasters were everywhere. I tried not to touch anything.

Alba squawked. “The unit is to fortify myself against prejudice, misperception and cruelty in their many forms. It will change the world.”

“That’s super,” the woman said. You could tell she was the kind of person who put a lot of stock in smiling.

“mm hmm, mm hmm,” somebody said.

“Good for you,” somebody else said.

“Anyhoo,” the woman said.

Everybody murmured and slipped away.

“Sorry about this,” I said to the woman. “Thanks for calling.”

I think she tried to smile more but it was getting hard to tell.

I steered Alba out the front door. She staggered out to the truck and tumbled into the passenger seat.

“What the hell? Who was that?” I said as I buckled her in, trying not to touch her.

“She and I met only minutes ago. In an effort to better understand humanity I spend my free time approaching strangers in the street and engaging them in dialogue. As she stepped out of her car I engaged her. She said she had just come from the liquor store and had guests waiting. I engaged her further. She began to back away. I pursued her, fearing I’d been misunderstood. During my pursuit she insisted I provide her with your phone number.”

“She’s a piece of work.”

“She is lonely. She was taught that if she is not successful, she will not be loved. She longs to be perfectly understood.” Even through the voice filters Alba sounded exhausted.

“She told you this?”

“The unit strips away pretense and leaves behind only meaning.”

“Oh yeah? What does the unit leave behind after it gets done with whatever I’m saying?”

Across the unit’s display scrolled: FEAR, REGRET, HOPELESSNESS, DESPAIR…

“Okay that’s enough,” I said.

****

It was Saturday and I was back at mom’s trying to convince her internet/healthcare provider that though mom couldn’t remember her email, password, social or phone number, she was still in some sense the person she claimed to be. I’d brought Alba over to keep mom busy while I was on hold. It was early and mom was sharp.

“Your voice as I hear it bears no trace of age, status, gender or ethnicity.” Alba said to mom. “Your physical form is similarly scrubbed. All people appear identical through my optics and comms.”

“Can you even tell people apart?”

“Each non-user I meet is tagged with an ID number that is displayed on their forehead.”

“No shit?” Mom looked up in vain for her forehead. “What’s mine? Wait. Don’t tell me,” she said. Mom loved guessing. “Three.”

“No. It is 90QP5-4L07.”

“It is?”

“No. I said that in jest. It is 6R4M-WA.”

“Joke’s on you. I’ll never remember that,” she said.

An automated voice finally came on the line and asked me to verify the last three letters of the name of mom’s first pet. I turned to ask mom and nearly ran into Alba.

One of the egg’s panels slid open with a clatter. I caught a whiff of sour air then a red cafeteria tray extended through the opening. It looked sticky. It was heaped with empty little milk cartons.

“I require further sustenance.”

“Is this all you’ve had to eat since you put this thing on?”

“The unit’s parenteral nutrition system is still in beta.”

“Enough’s enough,” I said. “That thing’s coming off.”

The tray dropped to the floor and Alba backed away from me, knocking over mom’s walker. “I long to be perfectly understood.”

“I said enough’s enough.” I started walking towards her.

“If I am threatened the unit will electrify its shell, making me impervious to violence.”

“Goddamn it Alba,” I said as I reached for her.

I heard furious keystrokes from within the unit then it sucked Alba’s legs up inside itself like spaghetti noodles and dropped to the floor with a thud where it wobbled loudly and uncontrollably in a loose circle. You could hear shit rattling around inside.

“I am unharmed.”

Mom reached out with a shaky hand to stop Alba from spinning.

“Do not touch me right now or you may die.”

****

“You ready?” I said, leaning into mom’s front doorway.

“For what?” she said.

I hate it when she comes to the door in a big t-shirt with no pants. I can never tell if it’s a fashion choice or an oversight. Her hair was a mess.

“Today’s the day you wanted to go in,” I said.

“Where?”

I slipped the car keys back in my pocket. “To apply for the thing,” I said.

The watch buzzed to refer her to 16 other times she’d made a plan to go to the Center to start the process of ending her life. This was the first time I’d actually showed up to take her.

Mom stepped back from the door. Her bare feet were blue and swollen. “Jesus. No fucking way. I just woke up. Uh-uh,” she said.

“No one’s got a gun to your head,” I said. “Your idea.”

“God,” she said, “shit must be bad. I had a feeling.” She scratched her scalp and looked at the front steps she couldn’t use on her own anymore.

I started to leave.

“Where are you going?” she said.

When I stopped and turned around to ask her if she had any idea how sick I was of all this, she was just standing there on her balloon feet, her knees shaking. Her death grip on the doorknob was the only thing keeping all 98 pounds of her from hitting the ground.

“Home,” was all I said.

****

A couple days later I was sitting on the couch watching recommendations on the big screen. Alba stood next to me swaying in silence. At one point I thought she might tip over.

“You good?” I asked.

Alba teetered wearily over to the wall, leaned her back against it and slid down till the egg touched the floor. “The unit will change the world,” she said.

“That thing comes off today, Alba.”

On the screen was some bald guy with no neck standing in front of a video board, yelling at a crowd. He was sweating and pointing. He looked pissed but you could tell he really got off on people watching him say shit. I couldn’t actually hear him because somebody in-studio was talking over the speech to explain what the guy really meant.

“Look at this clown,” I said.

Alba squawked. “He is scared of everything he does not understand and feels helpless to change it. He is panicking and lashing out. These rallies create a community for him.”

“He’s delusional.”

“He longs to be perfectly understood.”

“That’s nice, Alba, but this guy might seem less sympathetic when he’s telling you what to do.”

“The unit will help him. The unit is not designed to fight injustice. It is designed to make it—”

“Can you quit it with this shit already?”

When Alba spoke again I could tell she’d dialed down her volume. “It is designed to make it impossible.”

****

On her 11th day in the egg, Alba collapsed. I heard a loud thump in the kitchen and by the time I got there the egg was on its side just rocking back and forth on the floor, Alba’s legs lolling. I rolled the egg over looking for a latch, broke a fingernail trying to pry open a panel, but couldn’t get the fucking thing off. I dragged it out to the truck and drove Alba to urgent care.

An orderly got a saw. The unit popped open like a plastic Easter egg. Inside was my kid, along with a cheap laptop, camera, a voice changer and some fluid bags. The laptop’s screen was just a raw feed. No filters or ID numbers. No sex diaper. A doctor separated Alba from the shell and tossed it aside.

Alba was beaded up with sweat. You could see where the shoulder straps had bit into her skin.

The doctor checked Alba’s vitals and said she was dehydrated, malnourished and suffering from exhaustion but that she’d be okay. An IV was started. The doctor could hardly stand to look at me.

Alba’s eyes were open.

“The unit doesn’t work,” I said. “I saw inside.”

“The unit is constantly being reevaluated, upgraded and improved,” Alba said. “The unit will change the world.”

“The unit makes you sick,” I said.

“The unit keeps me safe,” Alba said. “The unit will keep everyone safe.”

“Alba,” I said.

“I long to be perfectly understood.”

“I’m getting that impression.”

Alba turned away to watch the jagged waveforms scroll by on the vitals monitor. I had no idea what to say. I never do. I wasn’t even sure if I should hold her hand or what.

“So which is worse,” I said finally, “being in it or out?”

Alba looked at the broken egg heaped in the corner. “I don’t know yet,” she said miserably, “but it’s definitely one of the two.”

****

“Wait,” mom said. “Where are we?”

“The Life Alternative Assistance Center,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because you said you were tired of being old, rundown and forgetting everything. If you walk in there and all goes well, you‘ll walk out with an officially signed document certifying your completion of the first of the six steps necessary to apply for the opportunity to die at a time of your choosing in a relatively painless way. To accomplish this your plan is to claim you're happy as a clam with a mind like a steel trap. You’re making me corroborate.”

The watch buzzed to confirm that this was indeed why we were here.

“So this is something I definitely wanted to do?” she said.

I nodded. “Like 30 minutes ago. But, Jesus, if you don’t want to now, don’t.”

“Big fucking step,” she said.

“The biggest.”

“Am I married?”

“No, not anymore. Not for a long time.”

“Did I love him?”

“Dad? I don’t know. I never got that impression. This is the most you’ve talked about him in 30 years.”

“I remember you,” she said. “You’re my son.”

“So you say.”

“But I can’t remember what we’ve done together,” she said. “Except what we’re doing now—you taking me to some place where they help kill old people.”

Anything I might say here would only seem manipulative, so I zip it and watch the other old folks, with their wrinkle-resistant slacks and white sneakers and enormous sunglasses, trying to look as happy and sane and well-adjusted as they could as they filed into the Center.

“So in a few minutes,” she said, “I probably won’t remember any of this and I’ll have to start all over again.”

“That’s usually how it goes.”

“I’ll forget you someday. Probably soon.”

“Probably. The watch will remember,” I said.

“I’ll forget…who is it I’ll forget? Oh god no. The good one.”

“Alba,” I said.

“Alba, Alba, Alba, Alba.”

“You’ll have the watch,” I said.

The watch buzzed to let her know that Alba was indeed the one she’d forgotten. Mom stared at the giant timepiece hanging from her wrist. It made her look small and naive, like a kid playing dress-up. Then she looked out at the other old folks and exhaled hard through her nose like she just took a drag.

“All my somebodies will still turn to fucking nobodies,” she said. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that she’d already agonized over this. Yesterday, in this very parking lot.

I looked back out at the expressway. “Maybe we should head home,” I said.

Mom rubbed her forehead back and forth like it was a crystal ball then she looked me in the eye. I felt like I did when I was little and she was trying to catch me in a lie. Finally, after a couple botched tries, she heaved open the car door, hocked a fearsome loogie and fired it at the pavement.

“Fuck it,” she said and got out to line up.