The New Me

By Zoe Cannon

Annika hasn't been the same since her accident. She's missing memories. Losing time. Remembering things that never happened. She's lucky to have her devoted husband Hugh to take care of her. So lucky.

 

Sure, he keeps threatening to replace her with one of those new companion bots. But it's just a joke. He loves her too much to trade her in for a cold, soulless robot, who would never have a thought of its own and never question him. And he definitely wasn't involved in her accident—how could she even think such a thing?

 

If she's noticed him acting strangely, it's because her brain is still damaged from the accident. And Hugh is there to help her get better. He's always right there…

 

This short story is 9800 words long. It is also available in Digital Soul, a science fiction short story collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zoe Cannon
• Release date: Sep 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201575892

Book preview

The New Me

Zoe Cannon

© 2021 Zoe Cannon

http://www.zoecannon.com

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

The New Me

The floor was sideways, and pressed up against my face, and I didn’t understand how it had gotten that way. My leaf-green mug—the one Hugh had told me was my favorite—lay in pieces in front of me, surrounded by puddles of coffee. By some miracle, none of the coffee had landed on me. No, I realized a second later, that wasn’t right. My cheek felt too warm, and so did my right arm. But it was only warmth, not burning heat. The sensation was muted, like someone had turned down a dial in my mind to lessen the intensity.

I searched my memory for how I had gotten here, and found only fuzzy static. A feeling I was all too familiar with since the accident. Hugh had said my doctor had warned me there could be brain damage, although I couldn’t remember that either, or any of my weeks-long stay in the hospital. According to Hugh, he had cautioned me about the possibility of lost memories, even personality changes. He hadn’t been wrong. Hugh talked about patching up the holes in my memory, as if my brain were a moth-eaten sweater, but more often than not I felt like my memory was one big hole, without even a few ragged strings of yarn to hold it together.

But normally the memories I couldn’t find were from the time before the accident. Not just a few seconds in the past.

Hugh’s heavy shoes clomped across the kitchen and around the broken mug. When I looked up at him, his frown of disapproval sent a shiver through me. A flash of memory burst into my mind like lightning. Hugh shoving me hard against the counter. Coffee sloshing out of the mug to sear my arm. The pain—not muted, the dial turned all the way up—making me lose my balance, and then—

And then the images stopped. The world rearranged, like everything had flipped sideways a second time, and I realized the look on Hugh’s face wasn’t disapproval. It was concern.

Annika? Are you okay? He bent down and reached out a hand to me.

I took it. As his fingers closed over mine, a shiver swept over me, like a presentiment of danger. Then the cold shiver turned into one that was warmer and more pleasant as he drew me into his arms.

Cleaner, Hugh barked over my shoulder. Clean up this mess.

The silver humanoid cleaner bot obediently glided up on her wheeled feet. She carefully avoided the liquid as she bent and picked up the mug shards one by one with her pincer hands. Not that she was really a she. Some people named their cleaner bots, but Hugh had never been