Grandfather2 by Greg Hrbek
“Grandfather²”could be the future. In the world Greg Hrbek has created, there are hologram parks and a device—a Replicator—that reconstructs desirable fast-food meals. Here, love and all our human flaws around it can be augmented. Streamlined relationships. Human feelings as efficient as Microsoft Excel pivot tables. In the story, a father alters his genetics to be a better parent. So, all should be well. This should bring the family closer together. Closer to the pains and joys of human existence. Hrbek’s sentences are truncated, and eerily as systematic as large language models. As Hrbek states in his note, “the absence of so much fundamental information creates a sort of ‘negative energy,’” and it is this negative space that allows the reader to put the world and these flawed, yet efficient, relationships together. Likewise, the characters are getting a piece of the whole. –CRAFT
Current Life Situation: Lucrative Work-Assignment, Stable Marriage-Union, Model Son. After daily work-duty, take Municipal Transporter to Metro-Sector T—Genome Modification Center—and receive Target Sequence Update. Then hurry home. Find Model Son (name Theo) at study-station, solving math problem concerning volume of box in shape of right rectangular prism. Wife in bedroom, having 3D interaction with Holo-Image of Mother, God rest soul. I go into kitchen and program Replicator for TACO BOX. Meats, refry bean, crumbly cheese in styrofoam containers, soft-corn in tinfoil, plus churros in paper bag.
At table, Son asks: “Special occasion?”
“Not really.”
Wife smiles, taking as usual preemptive bite of churro. “Father had Monthly Upload today.”
Son looks at me.
Have told him before basic story of Grandfathers3-6. How back in time, men of family (name Radovich) had mutation in 5-HT receptor, causing low self-esteem and flight impulse, resulting in cycle of abandonment/trauma/abandonment. No longer such negatives. Father stayed with me. And same as Father stayed with me, I stay with Wife and Son. All thanks to editing of DNA in Grandfather2, following legalization of Genome Modification, World Date 2101.
I assemble taco, take bite, and chew-speak: “Eat, before molecules slow.”
“Not hungry.”
“Not hungry? For most favorite of evening nourishments?”
Shrugs.
“Programmed special for you,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says. “Just don’t see why Genome Update is thing to always cause such niceness.”
I look at Wife, who looks at Son and says: “I think Father is always nice, Theo.”
“Yeah,” I say (attempt to keep tone light), “what am I, some kind of meanie vast majority of time?”
“No.”
“Okay, then. Eliminate long face and take churro.” I hand him churro. “Before Mother preemptively eats all churros.”
In bed, Wife says to me: “Maybe Theo has point. Is true, you are much happier after Genome Update, which seems to be getting more and more, and I too wondering why.”
I say: “Better to be Grandfathers3-6?” But know this is evasion of issue. Now full of insomnia. Should connect to Sleep Mode Program. Instead, stare into conundrum of dark. No reason to feel anything but good. Lucrative Work-Assignment, Stable Marriage-Union, Model Son. Freedom from Bondage of Genome. So why sometimes feel (as poet once said) that something is rotting in Denmark?
Next Free Day, I program Replicator for FRIED CHICKEN AND BISCUITS and take Theo to Holo-Park to eat picnic in Summertime Ecosystem. Simulacra of birds in air. When I toss crumb of biscuit on ground, bird comes down and pecks but crumb doesn’t disappear. Son watches, and I get ready to have heart-to-heart communication, as follows:
World is different from olden times when crumbs disappeared into beak of real bird. Many things lost, many things gained. Sometimes (as poet once said) may seem that something is rotting in Denmark. And in back of mind question may sprout like seed: Is love nowadays like bird—just image of thing gone extinct? Answer unknown to me. But I know this. Father and Son on Free Day in Holo-Park. Birds, trees, sky are illusion: true fact. But we make it scene of together.
GREG HRBEK is the author of the novel Not on Fire, but Burning, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and an NPR Best Book of the Year. His short fiction has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Tin House, and numerous literary journals, and in The Best American Short Stories anthology.
Featured Image by Warren Umoh, courtesy of Unsplash.
