The morning light trickled into the bedroom through the lazily tilted blinds, its soft fingers caressing the bed where Charlie lay awake cradling a pillow in his arms while facing the empty half of the bed. Charlie beat the sun most mornings, waking up around 5:30 a.m. and would wait patiently under the covers for the sun to greet him before rising from bed. This pattern of behavior had become ritualistic, a habit formed as to not disturb another, whom Charlie could scarcely remember the face of anymore. Still, Charlie knew that he felt lonely.

What Charlie could not know was that he was not going to die. Of course, some may say that this sentence is ridiculous, that of course he is going to die – he was at some point, born. Those who take especial pride in their ‘smarts’ may (rudely, I may add) point out that as Charlie is naught more than an idea of a 72-year old male, plagued with male-pattern baldness and a heart that likes a little occasional ragtime; born at his first mention and will disappear and die the moment the reader – you – flip to the ‘next big thing’.

And so, Charlie got up as the soft glowing tendrils of the sun bathed his eyes in a new day. He wearily slung his feet over the side of the bed into a pair of slippers and wrapped himself with the fuzzy bathrobe that hung on his bedpost. A small smile broke on his face, and his eyes responded with a slight tinkle of memory. Placing the bathrobe on the bedpost had been an old childish trick – his mother had told him that monsters love soft textures, and the bathrobe would keep the monsters under the bed busy while he slept snugly.

Charlie couldn’t help but feel like something was haunting him now, a dense fog in his mind that not even the sun could clear, hiding some awful monster from his sight. He slowly rubbed his head and despite his efforts he could not penetrate the fog – so he decided to go to the bathroom and wash up. After brushing his teeth and rinsing his face, Charlie reached for his blood thinner and promptly plopped it down the sink drain.

He hadn’t meant to, a phone rung from down the hall startling him and causing him to drop his medication. Perhaps he was just a little more antsy today, offput by not being able to shake the haunted feeling hanging over him. After all, the last time anything of note had happened in his life was a year ago when an overly concerned mama bear had torn through his neighborhood, not wanting her cubs to be poorly influenced by the neighborhood dogs. Charlie carefully popped the last of his pills into his mouth and ached his way down the hall where the voice of his daughter was coming through the answering machine.

“Hey Dad,” A strained pause.

“I know things have been a bit … well … never mind. Anyway, Marlene is turning six today and she’s real excited to come and visit you. I just wanted to let you know in case you had forgotten; we’ll be there around two.”

The sounds of small footsteps in the background coming down stairs.

“Pee-Paw?” A sleepy child’s voice.

“Oh honey, did mommy bother you? Do you want to -”

The machine beeps. End of message.

The monster in the fog stirs. Wasn’t her name Charlene?

Charle finds himself at the store, he had forgotten and didn’t have time to get a present – but at least he could make his granddaughter’s favorite food – hushpuppies. It was just that …

… that he couldn’t remember how to make them.

A couple walked past him in the aisle.

“It’s absolutely wonderful I tell you; Cheryl says she got one done of her mother and it’s like she never left!” The woman enthusiastically talks about some new gimmick gift.

“I heard rumors of mistakes in loading the right neuro-module, some strange malfunctions scarring poor children.”

“Poo- poo, just rumors dear.” The woman waved her companion’s comment aside with a graceful flit of the wrist.

Charlie blankly follows them with his eyes as they leave the aisle and bumps into a pair of giggly girls. They looked like twins, which made Charlie tear up a little bit, but he didn’t know why. One of the girls is talking about a cake recipe she wanted to try and needed a new jellyroll pan. The mention of cake sparked something in Charlie, hushpuppies are doughy like a cake, so they need to be baked – right? The question hung in Charlie’s mind as he grabbed the cornmeal and went to find the rest of the ingredients.

Charlene likes hushpuppies, right?

                                                    Right?

For some reason he thinks about a bear.

At home, Charlie quickly whisked together a batch of hushpuppies and then in a motion of solidarity sat in the warmth of his sunlit porch as his quiet canines sat in the warmth of the oven. He hoped the hushpuppies would be done before Charlene arrived, but the sun only made him sleepy. The radio by his rocking chair droned on about some new-fangled neuro-printing home accessory that would allow anyone to hold on to their loved ones as fireside busts after they died. A scientist was explaining how scanning a person’s neural networks shortly after death could allow them to imitate a person’s personality – so it would be like they never left.  Charlie didn’t hear this, but dreamt he was a taxidermized buck above a fireplace forced to say ‘moo’ at a push of a button.

Charlie’s daughter and granddaughter arrived a little bit before the oven timer announced that the hushpuppies were done. As his daughter let herself in to see what the oven was complaining about, his granddaughter jumped up on him exclaiming amidst giggles how ‘PeePaw was such a sleepyhead’. Charlie woke up to his granddaughter tugging on the wrinkled folds of his cheek. He picked her up and raised her away from his face.

“What a silly little girl you are, Charlene!”

She giggled, “I’m Marlene!”

“Of course, you are,” Charlie smiled as he put her down and he got out of his chair reaching to turn off the radio. The monster in his mind snarled. “Let’s go in and see what your mom is doing, I have a treat for you.”

“Yay!” Marlene squealed and she skipped into the house, Charlie following.

“Mommy, guess what silly PeePaw called me!”

Charlie’s daughter quickly hid a dark scowl as Marlene bounded into the room, Charlie caught it though.

“Oh, what did he call you?”

“Charlene! But I’m Marlene!” Charlie’s granddaughter piped between giggles.

“Oh isn’t he just silly,” Charlie’s daughter shot him a glare. “Well, look what your Peepaw made for you, why don’t you have some while I chat with him a bit, okay? Charlie’s daughter growled through a smile. She grabbed the oven tray with the hushpuppies and squatted to show Marlene.

“Shh-Puppies? Okay!”

There was a twinge of disappointment in her voice.

Charlie’s daughter and Marlene disappeared with a plate of the hushpuppies into the living room, the sound of cartoons came from around the corner and Charlie’s daughter reappeared. Marlene could be heard singing a song about tater-tots.

Charlie’s daughter sat down, putting her hand over her eyes, and clenching her arm tightly with the other. She sniffed and wiped some water from her eyes. Her hand came to rest on her head.

“Charlene … Charlene liked your hushpuppies.” Charlie’s daughter managed.

“Whe-“

“That’s Marlene, don’t you remember?!” She interjected, pointing towards the living room. Charlie marveled at her control over her vocal tone. She was clearly upset.

She continued digging into Charlie, “She absolutely adores you and you don’t even remember, I knew it was a mistake to come here.”

Charlie’s daughter hid her face in her hands.

“Where is Charlene?” Charlie said cautiously, though once he said it, he knew he shouldn’t have.

Charlie’s daughter erupted; the tater-tot song stopped in the room over. “She died! Last year! Right here!”

Right?

Here?

A brief flash of a memory. A small girl playfully takes swings at a pinata strung up in a tree near the woods. Barking in the distance, a few small dogs playfully chase a couple bear cubs. The rambunctious group chase the cubs through the forest and then through the lawn knocking the little girl over. She giggles and barely lets out a giddy ‘Puppies!’ before a large black mass tears out of the woods after the dogs – and right through the girl.

Charlie comes to, little Marlene is standing at the threshold, small tears in her eyes, she is saying something through her small whimpers.

“I’m sorry Mommy, I do like the puppies, really Mommy, they’re really good, please don’t be mad at PeePaw, I’ll be a good girl …”

Charlie’s daughter gets up and goes to comfort Marlene, hugging her and wiping the tears from her eyes, letting her know that everything is okay and that she’s done nothing wrong. All while glaring at Charlie.

Charlie and Marlene went back out front as Charlie’s daughter insisted, she needed some time, and besides, Marlene had been the one who had come for him. Marlene was telling Charlie about how much she enjoyed the puppies when he heard a car coming around the corner. Marlene hopped across the lawn, wanting to play tag as the car rounded the corner. Charlie’s stressed and tired heart couldn’t resist as the deafening bass reached his body and did a little jig that sent him to the ground. Marlene apparently thought this was a game and just as his he turned over to face the sky, she full force body slammed him on the chest.

Charlie’s daughter came out a little while later, having calmed herself down only to find Marlene giggling while lying in the grass, chirping about her ‘sleepyhead Pee-Paw’.

Charlie’s daughter wasn’t ready to let him go, perhaps there was guilt at the chasm that had been forming between her and Charlie for a year now. More importantly though, neither was little Marlene. Charlie’s daughter had heard the ads like the one Charlie had dreamt through and had considered the procedure for Charlene but had been prevented by a lack of useable material – this time there was no such issue. As the ambulance arrived for Charlie, his daughter made a call.

Charlie’s eyes opened. He was confused, he had died – he was sure of it and more importantly had been okay with it. Yet, here he was, staring into the twinkling eyes of Marlene. She was giggling and saying something, but he couldn’t quite hear what over a faint dial tone – as if his ears were software needing to be booted up. What a ridiculous notion he thought. He could, however, make out the word ‘head’ being formed by her little mouth.

Charlie tried to move his arms to touch her, his legs so that he could get up and find his daughter, his neck to at the very least see around his surroundings. But nothing happened. He glanced down and saw the wood grains of his living room table and it dawned on him what the word ‘head’ really meant. He screamed in agony; his granddaughter squealed in fear. She hugged his writhing face and tried to cover his mouth desperately as tears began to well up and run wildly down her face. Yet, Charlie raged on, the sheer weight of a life that is not meant to be and knows it. All too much for the circuits inside his head to manage and all of that now being poured out on the small child in front of him. His face contorted into inhumane forms, as the illusion of the carefully crafted silicone became not more than clay in the molding hands of his agony. His granddaughter began to get desperate, smacking her little fists against his writhing silicone flesh begging him to stop, to give her the grandpa she once knew back. He didn’t and in desperation with no other options in her little mind she ran away. She returned momentarily with a bat and broke Charlie.

Charlie’s daughter found her, still swinging away, mumbling through tears for the screaming to stop. The head was returned, and it was quickly discovered, that, in their rush, part of Charlie’s memories had corrupted his personality scan. Without the handicaps of his ailing body and mind he had been able to remember everything. It was an easy fix, and the company promised Charlie’s daughter she’d have her father again in no time and more importantly – at no extra cost.

 Charlie was brought once more before Marlene, now naught but circuits, wires, and careful curation of his personality module. Charlie’s daughter stood watching as a parent does that has secretly replaced the starved gerbil, wanting to shield their children from reality out of a perverse sense of parenthood.

Charlie wasn’t going to die, at least not yet. His being now at the whims of a 6-year-old, to be played with until the next big thing.