The chairs at the pharmacy counter are made of hard bioplastic and are supposedly shaped like a human body. They're not the right shape for Harold or anyone else who might actually need to sit on them. Too high above the ground, size-wise for people who have not yet begun to shrink in size, and too straight back, unpleasant for the vertebrae, which curl inward like last year's leaves.
“I’m waiting for my wife,” Harold shouts as the pharmacist appears. They had already ignored him, condescended to him, smiled weakly and ignored him again. — Is Rosie ready yet?
“I need my…” says the next person in line, passing the Allergies and Heavy Metal/Hemorrhoid Anti-Inflammatories sections. “Please…” someone else says; then everyone screams like Oliver Twist, if Dickens's orphans wanted pills instead of porridge.
Surprisingly, the pharmacist beckons. – Mr. Vetch? He holds out a paper bag. “I have your recipe.”
Harold gets up. “Finally.” The first day of the month is special. That's when he brings Rosie back. It's only for a 30-day supply, which means there's one on the last day of every month (except April/June/September/November – and February, which gets weird).
He tears the bag. “What is this?” He doesn't swear – you can get kicked out for that. He takes out a bottle with a single pill inside. “Where is my wife?
Read more science fiction from Nature Futures
“This is a valid, approved formula for grief relief under your insurance policy.” The apothecary's sigh could carry a stationary object straight to Mars. “It’s no different than a regular monthly calculation.”
Harold shakes the bottle. Inside is a large tablet, soft and pale, but it is not a person. They usually bring Rosie out from behind the counter, looking exactly the same as when she went for her last scan.
“Just add water. Hydration is key.” The pharmacist turns away. Harold considers causing a scene, but can't afford to get banned. The next nearest pharmacy is another 30 minutes by bus. He could call their daughter. He could call the doctor's office or his health insurance line. But he's not going to do that here. He will go to lunch first.
At the deli, he sits with his sandwich and takes out a bottle. The instructions say: Apply at least 340 ml of distilled water. Allow space.
He throws the pill on the table and pours water from the bottle over it. He thought it would spill everywhere, but the pill would absorb it. Then it starts to expand like a Magic Grow toy. Soon Rosie is sitting on the table. She, thank God, is fully dressed and at first glance looks the same as when he picked her up at the pharmacy.
“Harold!” She climbs off the table, supported by his hand. “What are you eating? Do you know how much sodium is in pastrami?”
Perhaps this new formulation will do. Now he's glad he didn't make a fuss.
But when they go to bed, he notices that her nose has become smaller. The front tooth is not crooked. The mole on her back, which they had been worried about for years but turned out to be just a mole, had disappeared. She also has a lot less wrinkles. It's her, but not quite, as if her edges were smoothed out by AI.
In addition, there is an additional finger on each hand.
That's not the worst of it. When he asks her how they met, she says she spilled her iced latte on him and then he laughed and asked her out. But Rosie didn't like lattes. They upset her stomach. Rosie thought the coffee should be black and bubbly.
Besides, he has never been to a coffee shop called Central Perk, even if someone calls there. They actually met on a farm. She taught him to speak more quietly on the phone. He taught her to speak up in meetings. She got a promotion, and then he did, and there was marriage, and children, and several trips, and retirement, and…
Fine. The important thing is that it's not Rosie. He spends the entire morning waiting. By noon he is back at the pharmacy. Rosie smiles calmly – this is also wrong! – next to him.
– Do you want her to have more wrinkles? The pharmacist looks puzzled. “Big nose? Is she too cute?”
“Exactly!” Harold wonders if it's all in the pharmacy's records: the missed cancer, the threat of a lawsuit, how they lost her too soon. They owe him this year, which is as close to the real one as possible.
“Harold?” Not exactly Rosie scratching her skin.
The pharmacist, keeping one eye on the line, checks his notes. “Your insurance has approved the switch to a generic. This is a completely legitimate cost-saving measure.”
