The Kodomoroid reads the news

to museum-goers; she sports 
a cute bob and wears a clean 
white cotton smock. Her older 
sister Otonoroid has her hair 
in a neat ponytail; she talks, 
acts, even breathes, if that's 
what we can call the light 
puffs of air escaping from 
her mouth. They each take up 
about the same amount of space 
as one human would and look 
almost lifelike, except for those
small inconsistencies that make
us second-guess our own sense
of reality: a rubbery fold
at the corners of the eyes, 
the not-quite-fluid motion 
of a body copying the way 
the body moves. And I know 
a sepia-tinted photograph 
of my father from the '80s 
that I feed into an app called 
Deep Nostalgia will not bring 
him back— Still, when I press 
play and his animated head 
turns gently toward me, the part 
of my brain that startles
at the uncanny is overcome 
by wonder. How those clear
blue-gray eyes look as if
they're looking right at me, 
even as the smallest half-smile 
seems to hold something back.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.