Summary:
<blockquote>In your head, the dead man wakes up crying. He stutters into awareness just as you manage to stanch the tears welling in your eyes, a response to the pressure of his presence on your limbic system. Your fingers brush, irritated, against the port at the back of your neck, catching at the ridges of the drive that carries his consciousness. He’s confused, lashing out to wrest temporary control of your limbs from you in quick staccato bursts before you can yank them back. “Stop that,” you snap, and then, remembering your client, soften the message with a “please.”
Your right pinky twitches and you lasso it in, exerting your will over its movement. You splay your hands on your desk and watch them carefully, pay attention to your toes lest they start off on unwelcome dance routines, but in your head the dead man quiets, and you know he’s beginning to understand.</blockquote>
➤ sci-fi story about a woman with a port-drive into her brain that allowed her to be a great child actor when she was young, and gives her a career as an adult of plugging in the mental backup of a dead person to visit bereaved families who want their beloved dead back again
➤ about identity, embodiment, and not knowing how to want things
➤ also about body-sharing
➤ in second-person pov which works so well for the things this story is about and the things it's doing! the main character is someone who spends most of her time being someone else, after all
➤ it's so compellingly written!
➤ has the perfect ending, which can be so hard to pull off right
➤ 7k words in length
➤ this is the first published story by this author, and something this great is her first; I am excited to think of where she might go from here!
