Staunt studied the collection of cubes. He had five of his son, spanning Paul’s life from early middle age to early old age; Paul faithfully sent his father a new cube at the beginning of each decade. Three cubes of his daughter. A number of the grandchildren. The proud parents sent him cubes of the young ones when they were ten or twelve years old, and the grandchildren themselves, when they were adults, sent along more mature versions of themselves. By now he had four or five cubes of some of them. Each year there were new cubes: an updating of someone’s old one, or some great-great-grandchild getting immortalized for the first time, and everything landing on the patriarch’s shelf. Staunt rather liked the custom.
He had only one cube of his wife. They had developed the process about fifty years ago, and Edith had been dead since ’47, forty-eight years back. Staunt and his wife had been among the first to be cubed; just as well, for her time had been short, though they hadn’t known it. Even now, not all deaths were voluntary. Edith had died in a copter crash, and Staunt, close to ninety, had not remarried. Having the cube of her had been a great comfort to him in the years just after her death. He rarely played it now, mainly because of its technical imperfections; since the process was so new when her cube had been made, the simulation was only approximate, and her movements were jerky and awkward, not much like those of the graceful Edith he had known. He had no idea how long it had been since he had last played her. Impulsively, he slipped her cube into the slot.
The screen brightened, and there was Edith. Supple, alert, aglow. Long creamy-white hair, a purple wrap, her favorite gold pin clasped to her shoulder. She had been in her late seventies when the cube was made; she looked hardly more than fifty. Their marriage had lasted half a century. Staunt had only recently realized that the span of his life without her was now nearly as long as the span of his life with her.
“You’re looking well, Henry,” she said as soon as her image appeared.
“Not bad for an old relic. It’s 2095, Edith. I’ll be one hundred thirty-six.”
“You haven’t switched me on in a while, then. Not for five years, in fact.”
“No. But it isn’t that I haven’t thought of you, Edith. It’s just that I’ve tended to drift away from everything I once loved. I’ve become a sleepwalker, in a way. Wandering through the days, filling in my time.”
“Have you been well?”
“Well enough,” Staunt said. “Healthy. Astonishingly healthy. I can’t complain.”
“Are you composing?”
“Very little, these days. Nothing, really. I’ve made some sketches for intended work, but that’s all.”
“I’m sorry. I was hoping you’d have something to play for me.”
“No,” he said. “Nothing.”
Over the years, he had faithfully played each of his new compositions to Edith’s cube, just as he had kept her up to date on the doings of their family and friends, on world events, on cultural fads. He had not wanted her cube to remain fixed forever in 2046. To have her constantly learning, growing, changing, helped to sustain his illusion that the Edith on the screen was the real Edith. He had even told her the details of her own death.
“How are the children?” she asked.
“Fine. I see them often. Paul’s in fine shape, a tough old man just like his father. He’s ninety-one, Edith. Does it puzzle you to be the mother of a son who’s older than you are?”
She laughed. “Why should I think of it that way? If he’s ninety-one, I’m one hundred twenty-five.”
“Of course. Of course.” If she wanted it like that.
“And Crystal’s eighty-seven. Yes, that is a little strange. I can’t help thinking of her as a young woman. Why, her children must be old themselves, and they were just babies!”
“Donna is sixty-one. David is fifty-eight. Henry is forty-seven.”
“Henry?” Edith said, her face going blank. After a moment’s confusion she recovered. “Oh, yes. The third child, the little accident. Your namesake. I forgot him for a moment.” Henry had been born soon after Edith’s death; Staunt had told her cube about him, but imprinting of post-cubing events never took as well as the original programming; she had lost the datum for a moment. As if to cover her embarrassment, Edith began asking him about all the other grandchildren, the great-grandchildren, the whole horde that had accumulated after her lifetime. She called forth names, assigned the right children to the right parents, scampered up and down the entire Staunt family tree, showing off to please him.
But he forced an abrupt switch of subject. “I want to tell you, Edith, that I’ve decided it’s time for me to Go.”
Again the blank look. “Go? Go where?”
“You know what I mean. Going.”
“No, I don’t. Really, I don’t.”
“To a House of Leavetaking.”
“I still don’t follow.”
He struggled against being impatient with her. “I’ve explained the idioms to you. Long ago. They’ve been in use at least thirty or forty years. It’s voluntary termination of life, Edith. I’ve discussed it with you. Everyone comes to it sooner or later.”
“You’ve decided to die?”
“To Go, yes, to die, to Go.”
“Why?”
“Because of the boredom. The loneliness. I’ve outlived most of my early friends. I’ve outlived my own talent. I’ve outlived myself, Edith. A hundred thirty-six years. And I could go on another fifty. But why bother? To live just for the sake of living?”
“Poor Henry. You always had such a wonderful capacity for being interested in things. The day wasn’t long enough for you, with your collections, and your books, and your music, and traveling around the world, and your friends—”
“I’ve read everything I want to read. I’ve seen the whole world. I’m tired of collecting things.”
“Perhaps I was the lucky one, then. A decent number of years, a happy life, and then out. Quickly.”
“No. I’ve enjoyed living on like this, Edith. I kept my health, I didn’t go senile—it’s been good, all of it. Except for not having you with me. But I’ve stopped enjoying things. Quite suddenly I’ve realized that there’s no point in staying any longer. The wheel has to turn. The old have to clear themselves away. Somewhere there are people waiting to have a child, waiting for a vacancy in the world, and it’s up to me to create that vacancy.”
“Have you told Paul and Crystal?”
“Not yet. I made the decision just today. But I’ll notify them—or it’ll be done for me. They’ll have most of my property. I’ll give my cube of you to Paul. Everything’s handled very efficiently for a Departing One.”
“How soon will you—Go?”
Staunt shrugged. “I don’t know yet. A month, two months—there’s no rush about it.”
“You sound as though you don’t really want to do it.”
He shook his head. “I want to, Edith. But in a civilized way. Taking my leave properly. I’ve lived a long time; I can’t let go in a single day. But I won’t stay here much longer.”
“I’ll miss you, Henry.”
He pondered the intricacies of that. The cube missing the living man. Chuckling, he said, “Paul will play my cube to you, and yours to me. We’ll talk to each other through the machinery. We’ll always be there for each other.”
The image of Edith reached a hand toward him. He cursed the clumsiness of the simulation. Gently he touched his fingertips to the screen, making a kind of contact with her across the decades, across the barriers separating them. He blew a kiss to her. Then, quickly, before sentimentality overcame him, he pulled her cube from the slot and set it beside those of his son and daughter. In haste, nearly stumbling, he went on into his studio.