But I just wanted him to take care of me some more. Joshie has always told the Post-Human Services staff to keep a diary, to remember who we were, because at every moment our brains and synapses are being rebuilt and rewired with maddening disregard for our personalities, so that each year, each month, each day we transform into different people, utterly unfaithful iterations of our original selves, of the drooling kids in the sandbox. But not me. I am still a facsimile of my early childhood. I am still looking for a loving dad to lift me up and brush the sand off my ass, as English, calm and hurtless, falls from his lips. Why couldn’t I be raised by Joshie? “I think I’m in love with this girl,” I sputtered.
“Talk to me.”
“She’s super young. Super healthy. Asian. Life expectancy—very high.”
“I love love,” Joshie said. “It’s great for pH, ACTH, LDL, whatever ails you. As long as it’s a good, positive love, without suspicion or hostility. Now, what you’ve got to do is make this healthy Asian girl need you the way you need me.”
“Don’t let me die, Joshie,” I said. “I need the dechronification treatments. Why isn’t my name up on the Boards?”
Joshie was silent.
Lenny Hearts Eunice by Gary Shteyngart, my favorite short story this year
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