Fidelity Holographic

I’m not the sort of guy who would burn his house down. But here I stand on the sidewalk, watching my little Victorian go up in flames. The wrap-around veranda. The little circular window up in the attic. The gutters I never got to cleaning. All of it burning. The structure groans as the fire swells the rooms. No doubt the photos and books have perished. Along with the fine china we got as a wedding present—crushed by debris and cracked in the heat. The orange blaze destroys the mementos of life as it once was.

But one voice cries out, refusing to be forgotten. Over the fire’s roar and over the sound of coming sirens, I hear my wife from within the house.

“Don’t you forget me, Peter! Don’t you dare forget me!”

~         ~         ~

Four months earlier I had work done on our house. A vanload of technicians came carrying toolboxes and bundles of wire under their arms. They spent the day making surgical cuts into the drywall, installing hidden devices. My input was minimal.

“The bedroom? Up the stairs, to the left.”

I spent most of the day walking around the halls aimlessly, watching things happen to my house, often rubbing the empty space on my ring finger. I wondered if any of the technicians had found that silver band as they did their work in out-of-the-way places. But I was too timid (and perhaps too numb) to ask. Besides something better was coming.

When the work was done, my house looked the same as it always had—but different. There were a thousand subtle details that only I would notice. Thin strips of glassy material lined every edge where the walls and ceiling met. Small cameras no bigger than marbles gave the rooms hundreds of hidden eyes. On the mantelpiece, above the paintings, in the fake flowers. Hidden everywhere.

As the technicians were packing up from the finished job, one of them told me to follow him down to the basement. Here the changes were more obvious. A huge metal box that had never been there before was bolted to the cinderblock wall. Tubes and wires came out of it and meandered in all directions up into the floorboards above, reminding me of a heart with arteries and vessels.

“This here,” said the technician, thumping his hand on the box, “is what controls it all. To get it going, we have one last step. Remind me your wife’s name?”

“Marilyn.”

Tom opened his folder and began leafing through the pockets.

“Marcy, Margaret, ah, here it is; Marilyn.”

In the pocket there was a long computer chip type device with my wife’s name engraved on it. The technician held it up to me and smiled.

“The guys at the lab did a good job on her.”

I’m pretty sure that’s what they tell everyone, but at the time I had no problem believing him. He opened up a hatch on the box and installed the chip under a tangle of wires and silvery components.

When he finished, he opened up another hatch. A whole bunch of switches lined the inside, like a circuit breaker box.

“Don’t be intimidated by all this. The only one you need to know is the on and off switch which is this one—.”

“No,” I said, cutting him off. “My counselor told me that I shouldn’t know. For grieving purposes.”

“Suit yourself. You might want to go upstairs then.”

I turned to go but then asked, “How will I know when it’s on?”

“You’ll know. Maybe you’ll want to be sitting down. The first time can do a number on people.”

I nodded and climbed up the stairs, hands shaking to reach the railing. As I headed upwards, I heard the hum of the machine turn on. My house had taken on a new life within the walls, the metal heart at work, a new organ to go along with the heating and the plumbing. I came to the top of the stairs and timidly walked the halls, waiting for something.

Then I heard it. Her voice.

“Peter?”

There she was. My wife. She stood by the front door as if she had just come in. She was in her favorite flowery gown. Her blonde hair framed her face and fell behind her shoulders. Her bright eyes twinkled as if to say Here I am. In a brief moment of hesitation, I didn’t know what to do. Was there supposed to be some sort of ceremony, like saying my wedding vows again? Should I have waited for her to do something?

Then I threw my questions aside, lips drawn into her for that long-awaited kiss. I knew it wasn’t real, but grief and desire make men fools. And in that moment, I made myself believe in flesh and bone. So I passed through the light of her image and met the wallpaper beyond.

~         ~         ~

The car accident had been a month before.

A lot can happen in a month. That’s how long it took for the scientists in the lab to plot Marilyn’s memories, personality, the way she moved. Even those little things like the way she smiled and held a pen. Details that made her Marilyn.

A month. That’s how long I held her engagement ring in my pocket before I worked up the courage and proposed. It wasn’t the ideal situation I had in mind but there was a sunset. We were getting ice cream in the park from a vender. She had a vanilla; I had strawberry. She watched the sun going down behind the city skyline; I watched her. It may have been just a park, paint chipping from the swings, wooden picnic tables with etched graffiti. But at that moment I didn’t need a beach or a fancy restaurant. So I pulled out the ring.

After she died, I remember how I held that ring. I set my own wedding ring beside it on my palm. I stared at the two of them for a long time, sitting alone in the curtain-drawn gloom of my bedroom. Then I tossed them away. They plinked across the wooden floor and both rolled down the vent in the corner.

A month. That’s how long it took us to find our house. After we bought it, I remember how Marilyn could hardly stay in the car when we pulled up to the curb. She rushed past the SOLD sign and ran back and forth like a kid home from school. And we were home. The house was ours. I remember how she smiled at me when I carried her through the front door.

A month after she died, I had her image implanted in that house so I could see that smile every day.

~         ~         ~

Except for the basement, my memories of her inhabited each room. When I’d go into the living room, there’d she be, practicing Chopin’s Ballade No. 1. Her hands went up and down the piano, but her fingers didn’t push the dusty keys down. The music kept going but the pages on the songbook didn’t turn. In the kitchen, she did the crossword puzzle in the newspaper laid across the table. No letters appeared as she wrote in the squares, but she kept on moving her pen and putting it up to her mouth as she thought. Every time I went into the den, she’d be curled up on the armchair, reading a book of poems.

I knew none of it was real. But seeing her in our house helped.

The accident had taken her too soon. This hardware, however, brought some vestiges of her back to me. It took some of the edge off cruel fate. That’s what the machine was designed to do. Eventually I would wean myself off her image and learn to say goodbye. That’s how the program is supposed to work.

~         ~         ~

About a month ago, I remember sitting down to bowl of cereal for breakfast. Marilyn stood at the stove making eggs. Not that she was really making breakfast; she merely went through the motions. Adjusting the knob on the stove to get the flames just right. Cracking the eggs one-handed. Tucking a stray bang behind her ear. Beautiful. It was just the way she would have done it. She offered me a plate of two eggs sunny side up with a slice of toast.

“No thanks. I’ll go with cereal today.”

“Come on,” she teased. “That’s not a real breakfast. You need some protein.”

“That’s okay. I’m good with cereal.”

It was the typical banter I’d have with my holographic wife. But on that morning I spotted something different. Or at least I think I did. Out of the corner of my eye, just as I was taking a bite from my spoon, I thought I saw her face change—brow furrowed and teeth gnashing. Anger directed at me. Was she mad I had passed up her breakfast? When I turned to look at her, she appeared normal—calm eyes focused on what she was doing. Whatever I had seen, it had happened in a flash. Or I had just been imagining it. I got up from the table, not hungry anymore.

~         ~         ~

One evening, as I was getting out of my car, I noticed the house across the street had its lights on. It had been empty and on the market for so long, I was used to seeing it dark whenever I got home from work. But then I remembered someone had moved in. I think her name was Sara or Susan. About my age or younger. I had heard she was single. From the light coming through her kitchen window, I could see her washing the dishes and singing along to a song only she could hear. Then I realized I was staring and retreated indoors.

After a light dinner, I went to the den and plopped into the arm chair in front of the TV. Flipping through the channels, I landed on some action movie with a square-jawed hero dealing out gunfire from a speeding car. He rammed one of the bad guy cars and drove it into an oncoming semitruck. The car smashed and spun away like a crumpled soda can—a collision resulting in death. I winced and changed the channel.

Too soon.

I finally landed on a nature program about forest animals and their habitats. The slow camera work and the rich voice of the narrator were soothing—just what I needed. But I was a few minutes in, watching a mother elk leading her twin calves to a river to drink, when there came the sound of a piano playing. At first, I thought it was part of the instrumental music set to the stunning scenery of the California redwoods. But it got louder and louder, jarring against the music coming from the TV. Then the pounding of keys grew so loud it was competing with a forest fire roaring up a mountain, belching smoke and ash. I put the program on mute.

“Honey!” I said, shouting to be heard over chords of Rachmaninoff. “Could you stop that? I’m trying to watch TV.”

There came no reply, and still the music played.

I got up from my easy chair and walked over to the living room, expecting to see Marilyn sitting at the piano, playing the keys as I often saw her doing. But she wasn’t. She was washing dishes.

Her image stood over the piano materializing plates from the keyboard as if pulling them up from the sink. She’d give them a scrub and a rinse from holographic water pouring from the music rack and then disappeared them into the piano’s upper front board as if setting them to dry. All the while the music played.

“This isn’t right,” I said.

She turned to me and music immediately quieted to a gentle twinkling.

“I know,” said Marilyn with a smile. “It’s Tuesday, your night to do the dishes. But I thought I’d let you relax. Does that please you?”

“Yeah…of course. But I’m trying to watch something. Could you stop the music for tonight…And don’t you think the kitchen is a better place to wash?”

“Right! Silly me.”

With a blip, she disappeared.

I returned to the den, confused over what just happened. As I was about to sit down, Marilyn’s image reappeared, now washing dishes in my easy chair. I leapt back with a start.

“I do please you, Peter?” Marilyn asked, scrubbing a non-substantial cup. “Don’t I?”

Not knowing what to say, I nodded. And she was gone.

I sat in the empty chair and mulled over this strange encounter. But after unmuting the TV, it was only a matter of time before I was swept up into more verdant scenery and the epic struggle for survival of forest beasts. The strange incident was pushed to the recesses of my mind. Glitches happened. Nothing to worry about. The IT department would be closed for the night, but a quick call in the morning and all would be fixed. That was the plan anyway.

By the time the program was over, it was late and I was half asleep. I dragged myself upstairs and collapsed into bed. In the morning, I had all but forgotten about what happened the night before. If I did think of it, I might have brushed it off as a strange dream.

~         ~         ~

A few days later, I was down in the basement looking for touchup paint. I hadn’t been down there since the technicians had installed the metal box to the back wall. The box hummed, and its tiny red lights blinked like watchful eyes. I stepped wide of the machine as I passed. I was trying to get to the storage shelves at the back wall. But a clutter of things blocked the way—a mountain of carboard boxes with my old bag of golf clubs set precariously on the top. There stood a catchall for nearly-forgotten things. I wondered if my wife’s ring and my ring had fallen down some duct and disappeared into this clutter.

I tried to make a path by rearranging things, but I found pulling out one box meant unsettling the whole dust laden mountain. Everything shifted, and the golf clubs toppled to the floor, knocking boxes over and spilling their contents everywhere.

As I cleaned up the mess, I found a box of envelopes. In the envelopes there were old photos of Marilyn and me. The time we went to a friend’s house to celebrate New Year’s Eve. The two of us dancing at my cousin’s wedding. Our trip to the Everglades. By professional photography standards, they were terrible—overexposed in some places and shadows too dark in others. We were caught between expressions, making weird faces. But they were glimpses of what life had been—no filter to clean it up.

A weight like a cold river stone thumped into my chest, and a trickle of a cry built up in my throat. Before grief could have its way, I stuffed the photos back into the envelope and hid the envelope in the box.

Where was I? Right…touchup paint.

I eventually cleared a way to the back shelves where there were cans of old paint and bags of oily rags. I found the little bottle of touchup paint and went up to the driveway. As I began to work on the scratch across the passenger side door, I noticed my new neighbor across the street rolling her trash can out to the curb. She had short brown hair and a cute smile.

A smile for me.

It was then I realized I was staring. She was just being polite. To recover, I went to wave with the hand holding the open paint bottle, but switched hands before I spilled and made a fool of myself. She gave a small laugh and wished me a good afternoon before she went to her front door. I think I told her the same.

Then I was conscious of the empty space on the ring finger of my lifted hand. It was something small and strange to notice. But it felt like I was advertising singleness in the presence of a woman. Feeling suddenly guilty, I tucked my hand into my pocket and retreated for the house.

~         ~         ~

Later that night, I woke up to the feeling of eyes staring into my back. I rolled over and saw Marilyn standing at the side of the bed, looking down on me. White night gown. Not a hint of expression on her face.

“Hello honey,” I said mechanically.

Not a word. She just stared at me. Her pale form chilled against the darkness.

I looked at her, but her eyes didn’t meet mine. She just stared into my chest. Then she spoke, her voice void of emotion.

“I think you should clean the gutters Peter.”

“What?”

“You should clean them. Now.”

“It’s got to be like 3 AM. I’ll take care of them later.”

I rolled over. The hours drifted in sleepless dark, and the feeling of her watching eyes never left me that night.

~         ~         ~

 “Holicorp Transitional Grieving Department. This is Nancy speaking. How may I help you?”

“Yes, I’m calling about my wife. She’s been acting—well, her hologram—has been acting a little strange.”

“How so sir?”

“Last night I woke up to her watching me while I slept.”

“Are you sure that wasn’t in your wife’s character?”

“To stare? No.”

“So you and your wife didn’t look at each other in the past?”

“No. I’m not saying that. I’m saying she never stared at me in a creepy way.”

“Sir, the relational status of our product is not the responsibility of this department. From the information you have given me it sounds like your complaint is more appropriate for the analysis department. Therefore, I will transfer your call now.”

“But I’ve already been holding—hello?”

“Thank you for choosing Holicorp. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line…”

~         ~         ~

A few hours before my house burned down, I had decided to take a walk. It had been a long time since I gone out of the house. After the accident, life had turned into the routine of work and home, work and home. It was dull. But dull things can’t cut you. And for a long time, I wasn’t ready to face the sharpened edge of grief.

The evening my house burned down, however, was somehow different. Maybe it was the crisp wind that awoken my nerves as I went outside to get the paper. Was it autumn already? The maples were blushed with the season, and the oaks were edged with gold. The sky and trees spoke of an later afternoon too rich with color to be spent indoors. So I decided to go out. What would be the harm in a little walk? I went down the street and turned down a lane that headed towards the edge of town.

I don’t know how I got to park. With nowhere in particular to go, maybe nostalgia was working in the back of my mind, nudging the arrow of my internal compass. Perhaps, like geese flying south and whales migrating to birthing waters, we all have an instinct that guides us to the places we know.

The park was a place Marilyn and I went to often. There was an old willow at the edge of the pond; that was our spot. We’d sit there, feeding the ducks and skipping stones and speaking the foolish language of lovers. When I stood beneath the willow, I rubbed my thumb over my empty ring finger. The patch of ground felt empty. Not just of her presence but of the mimic of her presence. Being so accustomed to her hologram, I half expected to see her image generated at the water’s edge—to see her pick up a stone and send it skipping across the surface of the pond—a memory conjured up by light from hidden devices. Of course, none of that happened.

I was disappointed. But I felt something else as well. Was there something in me that was secretly pleased there was no hologram to fill this space? Whatever the feeling was, I didn’t like it. So I turned from the pond and the willow and headed home.

By the time I got home, it was getting dark. Before I turned up the walk to go inside, I saw my neighbor coming from the opposite direction. Apparently she had thought it was a nice day for a walk as well.

“Hello,” she said. “I have something for you.”

I blinked at this. “You do?”

She went to the mailbox and pulled out a letter.

“This is yours. Mailman must’ve mixed up addresses.”

She handed it to me. And in that moment, her finger tips brushed against mine.

“Thanks,” I said.

She smiled and wished me a good night.

When I went back inside, I found the house dark. I put my coat away and was about to head to the kitchen, but then I spotted a shape standing at it end of the hall—a lowlight figure almost melding into the darkness. Arms crossed, face stern. Without waiting a beat, the shape spoke.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” I asked.

“That outside. Do you think I missed it?”

“She just gave me my mail,” I said with a shrug. “Just a mix up with addresses. It was nothing.”

“It sure looked like something.”

“Trust me. It was nothing. Did you have a good day?” A funny thing to do—to try to change the subject while talking to a hologram. But it was all I could think to do. Marilyn’s image wouldn’t take.

“You like her,” she said bluntly.

“Whoa! Who said anything about that?”

“You do, don’t you?” Before I could say anything in reply, she persisted, her voice starting growing in tone and raw-throated hostility. “Why am I not enough for you? Don’t I please you? But no, you’re looking elsewhere. I saw you watching her window—when she was washing the dishes. Well, I can wash dishes too, Peter. I can wash the dishes! And still that’s not enough to please you!”

“Hang on just a minute! Why don’t you calm down?”

The anger in Marilyn’s image shifted in an instant from fiery furnace to artic freeze. Her eyes narrowed to slits.

“Calm down?” she said, her voice cold. “Calm down! Why do men always say calm down as if it will make things better? Who are you to say calm down? You and your wandering eyes. Your flirty hellos.”

“Listen Marilyn.” I was about to tell her this was all a big misunderstanding. But I said something else instead. “You know what? I don’t even know why I’m having this conversation with you. You’re not even real.”

The words came out before I could give them any thought. And Marilyn’s glare grew sharper.

“What did you say?”

“You’re not real. You’re a hologram.”

“How dare you!” she seethed. “How dare you say such a thing! But that’s what you’d like, isn’t it? You’d like me to vanish so you can hook up with that little tramp across the street.”

“Okay,” I said, seeing I couldn’t negotiate with the overdramatic silliness that had infiltrated its way into the program. “We’re taking this a bit too far. This isn’t the Marilyn I knew. So why don’t we reboot and see if that can’t fix you.”

“Who are you to tell me who I am? You’ve forgotten me Peter. Don’t you dare forget me!”

Then her image blipped from the end of the hall and appeared right in front of me. She stepped in closer and closer causing me to backpedal. Somewhere in my mind I knew the image couldn’t hurt me. But that knowledge was pushed back as she thrust her anger contorted face into mine. The fire in her returned—a volcanic force erupting from the heart of the earth. Enough to back into the coffee table and send me tumbling to the floor.

Looking up from my fall, the house suddenly appeared different. The round little cameras around the room—I had grown used to them over the last few months, but now they stood out from everywhere. Those electronic blinkless eyes were all staring at me in sterile judgement. I could feel the pulse of the wires under the floorboards letting Marilyn know where I was at every moment. I could almost hear the digital language of conspirators living in my walls.

“1001100100111?”

“00111001011000!”

Then Marilyn stood over me and screamed. Not words; just the raw scrape of fiery air across the throat. No need to breathe, she kept screaming and screaming. I clapped my hands over my ears and ran to the only place where she couldn’t go.

Down in the basement, I found the metal box bolted to the wall. My hands tore open the hatch, exposing the switches within. Not knowing which one would turn off this madness, I flipped them all, starting at the top and frantically working my way to the bottom. But Marilyn didn’t stop screaming. Her endless cry only grew in volume and swelled into a chord beyond the possibilities of the human voice. Both high notes and low notes. The shrillness broke the basement’s windows and threatened to split the top of my skull. The bass shook the walls and floors, my innards and bones.

I grabbed a nine iron from my old golf bag and started hitting the metal box. The exterior dented and I could hear mechanisms on the inside break to pieces. But Marilyn kept screaming. I struck at the thing over and over with each hit driving my dents deeper. Then I must have hit the place where it drew power from the outlets. Sparks blasted, and electricity jolted up my arms. I flew across the room, and my head crashed against the water softener.

When I came to, the first thing I noticed was that Marilyn’s screaming had stopped. How long had I been out? Long enough for the sparks to catch my house on fire. I squinted at the glow of red and orange all around me, the stacks of boxes burning, the flames already licking the floorboards above. Coughing from all the smoke, I crawled up the stairs. When I opened the door to the ground level, there was Marilyn’s image, waiting for me.

The damage I had done transformed her into a mangled creature. Her body flickered in and out of transparency, digital skeleton exposed. Her image crackled and flashed like the picture on a broken T.V. She flickered in and out of anger, happiness, depression, fright. But her voice never changed tone. All the rage of a woman scorned.

“Don’t you forget me, Peter! Don’t you dare forget me!”

I felt the nine iron still in my grasp and threw it at her as hard as I could. But it crashed into the wall beyond. Of course it had. She wasn’t flesh and bone. She wasn’t even a reflection of who my wife had been. She was a ghost come to haunt me. And to be rid of her, I had to pass through fire.

~         ~         ~

Long after the blaze had been put out, I came to the gutted ruins of my house. The walls were blackened and warped by water damage. I passed under the keep-out tape and crossed over the broken front door. My feet crunched on the charred bits of debris covering the floor. Pieces of the ceiling and insulation mixed with the ashes of furniture. I looked around, but there were no holograms. I listened, but there was no screaming.

I tried to remember the house for what it had been before the technicians with their toolboxes and bundles of wire had transformed it. This had been our home. There was the kitchen. There the living room. There the front hall. I aimlessly kicked a pile of debris aside, and underneath I saw something that caught my eye. A glint of reflected sunlight.

There among the ash of my former home lay two silver rings.