{"id":3194,"date":"2022-03-18T21:25:36","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T21:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3194"},"modified":"2022-03-30T12:04:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T12:04:14","slug":"do-you-remember-by-steven-rasnic-tem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3194","title":{"rendered":"Do You Remember by Steven Rasnic Tem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do You Remember<\/em><\/strong> by Steven Rasnic Tem (Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>, March-April 2022) opens with an elderly man called Roy going to the topmost room in his house to speak to a screen simulation of his dead wife Susan. After we witness a few of the, sometimes imperfect, conversations between the two, Roy\u2019s daughter Elaine (who is cool on the simulation idea) visits along with granddaughter Jane and a baby grandson.
When Jane asks to go up and see her grandmother, Elaine isn\u2019t keen, but she allows her to go. While Jane is upstairs, Elaine asks her father some difficult questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elaine gazed at the infant, stroking his hair. \u201cDoes it cost a lot, the maintenance, the remote storage, whatever\u2019s involved?\u201d
\u201cI can afford the fee. You remember, I was good with a budget.\u201d
\u201cDid she even want this?\u201d
He wasn\u2019t sure how to answer. \u201cYou knew your mother. She wanted me to have anything that might help me, or any of us. Otherwise, all I can say is the idea didn\u2019t seem to bother her much.\u201d
\u201cBecause she wouldn\u2019t be aware of it. She\u2019d be gone.\u201d She leaned over and smelled the baby\u2019s head.
He watched the child stir, fuss, then go back to sleep. \u201cI think\u2014\u201d He stopped. \u201cThat\u2019s right. She\u2019d be gone.\u201d
Elaine turned her head away from her son to look at him. \u201cDad, after you die, am I supposed to keep her, put her someplace in my house and visit her like you do, pay for all that? Is that what I\u2019m supposed to do? And then am I supposed to keep both of you around after you die? Am I supposed to like having ghosts in my house?\u201d
Roy hadn\u2019t considered any of this. He should have. \u201cIt\u2019s okay, honey. You\u2019re free to do whatever you need to do for you and your family.\u201d
\u201cYou make it sound like it\u2019s not going to be hard.\u201d  p. 155<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When Jane comes downstairs she tells her mother that simulation-Susan would like to see her and the baby. Elaine and the grandson go upstairs.
The story then skips forward a generation to a time when the granddaughter Jane has her own children, and is taking them to Memorial Plaza. We learn that this is a place where people can talk to various historical figures, and where her children will be able to talk to their great-grandparents Susan and Roy. At the end of the story Jane\u2019s children ask if they can also talk to their grandmother Elaine (Roy\u2019s reluctant daughter): Jane tells them that their grandmother didn\u2019t want to leave a simulation behind after she died.
This has an impressively contemplative first half, but the second part doesn\u2019t really go anywhere\u2014the reveal of Elaine\u2019s refusal to do the same as her parents isn\u2019t really enough to complete the story other than in a cursory fashion. I couldn\u2019t help but think that this is the seed of a longer, and more profound and satisfying, story.
** (Average). 4,200 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do You Remember by Steven Rasnic Tem (Asimov\u2019s SF, March-April 2022) opens with an elderly man called Roy going to the topmost room in his house to speak to a screen simulation of his dead wife Susan. After we witness a few of the, sometimes imperfect, conversations between the two, Roy\u2019s daughter Elaine (who is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[17,539,4,787,12,786],"class_list":["post-3194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-steven-rasnic-tem","tag-17","tag-539","tag-asimovs-sf","tag-human-simulations","tag-short-story","tag-steven-rasnic-tem"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3194"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3345,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3194\/revisions\/3345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}