ONLY EDIT — an extract 

This is a memory I remember. Most of the ones in her archive, I don’t, at least not as clearly. I’d never known my mother was recording so much of her life, and our lives where they intersected with hers.     

            The memory is of me, sitting on the floor surrounded by misshapen lumps, colourful plastic bits and coiled cables, red and blue. Right away I recognise my playdoh electricity set, the two penguins I made with light-up wings, the purple dough tank on yellow plastic wheels that turned when I squeezed a mini-motor. ‘It’s taking supplies across Antarctica,’ I’m saying in the video. ‘Look, the penguins are starving with no fish to eat.’

            There’s my mother’s voice saying, ‘Oh dear,’ and the video swings to a screen, filled with lines of code, gibberish to me then, but now I understand how important it would have been.

            Off-camera, I persist with my campaign for the penguins, unseen but heard. I was that sort of kid, who had to learn when to shut up. ‘See? A toxic spill in the ocean made their wings glow in the dark. It really hurts and they can’t swim or fly. That’s why the tank needs to get there fast!’

            There’s silence and then a sigh, and I see in the video that little kid’s face fall, crumpling into annoyance and tearfulness, her blunt fringe splayed on a sweaty forehead. I flag the visible clues. Vertical lines between brows; confirm frustration. Grooves on either side of mouth in mid-whine; resentment. Face flushing blotchy red; impending tantrum if attention not offered. Back then, there’d only been phones and headcams capable of recording approximate emotion. It takes manual remastering of old videofeels to bring out feelings specific to four decimal places of Plutchik’s constant. Which is the contracted minimum specificity we provide. I’m a real professional even in my personal life.

            ‘Mummy… Do they even care you’re working on a Sunday?’

            ‘Who told you to say that? Did your father teach you to say that?’ The video shakes before steadying, focusing on the face of the young me – I can’t have been older than six. ‘Never mind. You are a good girl, Ruby. Only looking after your mother, right?’

            ‘Yeah, sure,’ I say, today, searching the screen for expression, body language, any sense of a feeling I haven’t yet tagged. Anything to enhance this edit and boost the sensation that the watcher isn’t merely remembering but is living the experience with a certain, pleasant déjà vu. Of course, the only watcher will be my mother.

‘Penguins eat krill. K. R. I. L. L. Or they used to anyway. Don’t say I didn’t spend time with you,’ says my mother in the video.

            Now I know why she recorded all this – everything she said and did, breathed out and in, every bump and line her heartbeat made. I know why she left it to me. I don’t know what she expected I could feasibly do with it. My mother was – is – a software engineer. Feasibility studies are in her genetic code. She’s not supposed to let hope override systems.

***

This kind of data is what I live and breathe all day. We are in the business of experience - creating it, editing it, shaping it, whether you’re asking us to build a feeling from scratch or remake someone’s memories.

            As an emotion consultant at AnotherLife – Real Worlds, Real Feelings! – I make videofeels based on patented state-of-the-art biosynthemotional technology. People capture a moment, an occasion, a period of time, and we transform it into a full sensory experience, raising the highs, regulating the lows, smoothing the bumps. We make it a story, worth showing the kids and reliving with friends or just as commonly, alone.

            I work on three widescreens, one HollaScryn-enabled for high-definition projections, and two that are emotion-sensitive and sync with my InSkin and Augmentra lenses. I have a bunch of other feeling enhancers, too: an olfactory converter, a heartbeat simulator, a virtual texturiser, a reverse breathalyser that recreates the gaseous composition within a given scene. Or to put it another way, if someone coughs or farts, we know all about it. Whatever has been sensed and captured of days, weeks, months, years past, we know. We take someone’s raw experience and edit it into an emotional journey they can be proud to remember.

            That’s one of our taglines anyway. In the videofeels I am building for my mother, it’s not so much the emotional journey she will be proud of, but the remembering of it in the first place.

***

My mother lives in a one-bedroom on the eighth floor of a two-block complex for social and assisted living. Her wing is called Orchid Place, though there are no orchids anywhere, only a communal yard with a single spindly tree.

            At number twenty-seven, I press the doorbell and wait. My mother’s details are displayed on a tiny inset screen. Daisy Li. Languages: English, Putonghua. Interests: Manual coding, Auto-code, Ping-pong. Always Resuscitate.

            ‘By authenticating through retina scan, you agree to terms of use.’

            Obediently I stare into the screen and then the door swings open.

            My mother is sitting at her desk, watching some old CGI flick on the flatscreen pinned to the wall. She swivels to face me, slipper-clad feet swinging above the shaggy beige rug.

            ‘Hi Mum.’ I cross to her and lean down to hug her small round shoulders. Her hair smells oily, its coarse blackness sporting some strands of white already, even though I helped her dye it only last month.

            The left side of her mouth curls into a lopsided smile before the right side catches up and then she’s showing her teeth, the full set of her own teeth, and the dimple, a cutely incongruous groove in her lined cheek.  

             ‘Where are we going today?’ My mother adjusts her oversized spectacles, necessary these days because her eyes have become too dry for Augmentras. She is wearing a nice blue shirt with camel-coloured trousers, a stylish combination most likely thanks to Marie, her main carer. 

            ‘We’re going to your favourite restaurant.’

            ‘How do you know it’s my favourite?’

            ‘You told me that the last time we went.’

            I can see her scanning the data fogging up her glasses and I know she’s looking for records of dates, dinners, of her naming her favourite. I wait. Marie says loved ones should allow the patient to feel independent, to come to their own conclusions. Don’t remind or cajole and avoid describing at length the experience you can’t believe they forgot.

            My mother rises and picks up her face mask from the shelf by the door. Without saying anything I fit it for her so it’s snug against her nose and over her mouth, a bright wash of blue with pandas dancing from ear to ear. This is part of our routine now, one of the few tasks I am allowed to do on her behalf, a small rare acknowledgement that things have changed.

            I put on my own mask, an unobtrusive black and grey number, and my mother nods approvingly. ‘The one Aunty Butterfly got you? Best in Beijing. You must message to say thank you.’

            Of course I did last year, when I first received the mask, but I promise to do so anyway. My mother takes my arm and we head out, the front door clicking behind us.

            Outside it is cool, the sky pitch dark even though it is only six pm, the street lamps casting watery light all down the road. An air quality pole is glowing yellow, displaying a warning. Olders and other vulnerable at risk. At the playground across the road, a few kids are hanging around the virtual experience cubbies. Their faces are almost completely hidden by oversized masks that look more like professional gas filters.

            Across my vision, the Emometric Validation Extension kicks into gear.

            Caution! Unsecure profiles! Risk of data theft: Medium

            The EVE doesn’t read minds – it only analyses real-time physical and emotional data and anything that is said out loud in order to provide insights on possible outcomes and suggested actions. But around here, virtual muggings aren’t unheard of and I don’t like the way those kids are staring, their eyes shadowed above their dark masks, streams scrambled so that it appears they’re watching sitcom reruns.

            I shift so I’m blocking my mother from their view, and we continue walking down the street. Scanning my Augmentra settings, I lock down all permissions and restrict profile access temporarily.

            ‘Cowface racialist!’ There’s a burst of muffled laughter. My mother cringes and I want to yell something back, scare them like they scared her, but I just pat her hand and murmur that we’re heading the right way.

            At the pedestrian crossing, we draw even with an elderly couple. He is gripping her puffer-jacketed arm, she is peering down the road with the intent of a shark who has spotted a defenceless fish. He is tall and slender, wavering slightly; she is short enough for their friends to maybe make jokes about the disparity, and she is not chubby but stocky, a stability that he must have found reassuring, even trustworthy. Did my dad ever think that way about my mother as they walked down our road, their down-filled parkas snuggled against each other? Or did he know somewhere inside him that he would one day betray that reliable solidity and because of that, feel an even greater freedom?

            Buy winter coat?

            I blink away the alert. My mother grips my arm a little tighter.

***

We always order the same things at Phoenix Palace. My mother is the only one who doesn’t know that.

            ‘They are suggesting xiao long bao,’ she announces. Her eyes flick towards a corner of her spectacles, where there is probably the same recommendation I’m seeing in my top right.

            ‘Great idea.’ We usually get eight.

            ‘Four or eight? Oh. They suggest eight. Can you eat so much?’

            I nod enthusiastically and she smiles. ‘You loved these when you were small.’

            ‘I know.’

            ‘Noodles with sauce?’

            I agree.

            ‘We need a vegetable.’

            I tap our items into the table display and a fat, smiling dumpling congratulates me on completing the order.

            Resume profile access?

            I blink to accept, and all around my vision small alerts appear. There’s a Career prospect, two tables away, a Chinese woman with a pixie cut and neon green earrings. I could Date the Lithuanian guy with the sparse beard and baseball cap, or make a New Friend? of the young-looking punk in the blue plastic jumpsuit. When I blink through for more information, I discover that she is part Singaporean part French and part Indian, with a job in the educational sciences. Someone behind me is DTF!!! followed by several cucumber and peach animations, which doesn’t seem entirely appropriate for a family-friendly restaurant, but then again, it’s not as though the alert would come up for anyone underage.

            My mother’s gaze is shifting side to side and up and down, like she’s dreaming with her eyes open. Ever since she got the glasses with their wider field of data, it’s even more obvious when she’s scanning her streams.

            A waiter wanders over. ‘Did you order the xiao long bao with soy meat or seitan? Madam?’

            My mother lets out this squeak and her face contorts. The waiter stares at her and then his face kind of crumples. I think he mumbles ‘Sorry.’

            ‘Soy meat,’ I say quickly.

            ‘OK. This is yours.’ He puts a big bamboo steamer between us and whisks the cover off.

            My mother peers into the steamer, at the dumplings with their pinched peaks and prettily folded skins. ‘What is this?’

            ‘Xiao long bao.’

            She stares at me as if she doesn’t believe me, but picks up her chopsticks and manoeuvres a dumpling onto her spoon.

            ‘Why order so many?’ She bites the dumpling in half before I can warn her about its hot insides, and grimaces. ‘Not nice. Why did you choose this place?’

            Breathe

            ‘I thought you would like it.’ I take a dumpling and nibble the skin to let out the heat. My mother sits back and starts streaming something on her glasses.

            ‘Mum.’ It’s okay to remind your loved one to be present, Marie says. ‘Mum.’

            The waiter comes over with a bowl of noodles, drenched in oily sauce. ‘Pak choy coming.’ He doesn’t look at my mother.

            ‘Mum?’

‘            What do you want? I am busy. You think you are the only important thing?’

            There is often, not always, this moment when something switches for my mother. Some flash of understanding, an illumination of the fog she is in, and resentment that there is no retreating. And so my mother hunkers down, tries to stay still, under the radar – whose radar? – to prevent any further slide into a future she does not want. This time, it is the waiter’s fault. Maybe he should be more responsible about checking the profiles of his customers. I anonymously post a frowny face under his service rating, then feel guilty and change it to an indifferent smiley.

            Some people are glancing at us now, with what EVE diagnoses as sympathy and curiosity. They must know, or can guess, that my mother is ill. Enough clues in her profile, meticulously filled out and updated from automatic sources like her life-band and glasses. My mother has always been philosophically in favour of information sharing. No borders, she’d say. More data, more insights. Save everything, because you don’t know what will be important later.

‘            The food will get cold.’ I extract a clump of noodles to my bowl. My mother slumps in her seat, her mouth curved in a frown.

            When the vegetables arrive, I put a couple stalks on her plate. Eventually she sits up and we finish the meal in silence, my mother constantly scanning whatever is on her spectacles.

            ‘What are you looking at?’ I finally ask.

            She freezes and looks at me as if I’ve slapped her. Too late I remember, again, Marie’s caution about asking questions that require my mother to recall context.

            ‘Where have you taken us?’ She looks around and fear, according to EVE, is the emotion cloaking her face, pulling at her cheeks and lips, burrowing at her brow. Except I can also see what she so often turned to me when I was younger, the frustration, impatience, even anger when I tried to divert her attention from her screens, to win her over with starving playdoh penguins.

            When I tell her where we are, she says tightly, ‘I want to go home.’

            We walk back in silence, alerts pinging at me from air quality poles and shopfront advertisements.

            Filter Advised.

            Blue and White!

            Buy Now?

            Inside, I help her unfasten her mask, folding it and leaving it exactly where it was before. Even though the next time she wears it, someone, maybe Marie, will help her put it on, I don’t want her to worry if she doesn’t see it.

            ‘Good night Mum.’

            ‘Bye. Bye-bye. I love you.’

            There’s usually this moment when she switches back, circles around to where we always end up, where I guess we will always end up no matter what either of us does or doesn’t do.

            ‘Love you too.’

***

            ‘Say your name.’

            ‘Daisy.’

            ‘Day Sea. Is that correct?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘I am sorry. Let’s try again. Say your name.’

            ‘Day. Zee.’

            ‘Daisy. Is that correct?’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘Congratulations! Your diary is ready to use!’

            ‘Do you have paper?’

            ‘I am sorry. I do not understand that query. If you would like to start recording, please say Let’s Record and begin speaking.’

            And begin speaking. I understand. I get it, like Ruby says. I will speak here every day. Or some days. This is where I will choose to record. Some things instead of all things. I am seventy years old. Soon seventy-one? I am the only one who cares and even then. I used to believe that I must capture everything. Now I am not sure. When I see Ruby work, when I watch what she makes and I feel the old times, I am not sure that everything means enough. Everything can mean less when there is so much that there is no story. Only confusion.

            This is being old. I was always so confident. I remember. I like this word. I love this word. Ruby would say, why don’t you marry it? She likes to poke at me. Is such a strange girl, so hard but so scared and soft inside. So different from how I was. You can say that growing up Chinese in Shanghai is different from growing up Chinese in London. But it is more than this.

            She asks me why I don’t marry this or that, sometimes it is a person, sometimes it is something I say I enjoy. Especially when she was little. Because of her father, using her pain like he is a ghost, leaving us but always there is a ghost of him, of the man he wasn’t, hurting us from far, from wherever he is.

            Albany. Not even New York. With the vet who had the big ass, an American country ass, and eyes like a pigeon, so small, so mad.

            Ruby would say I am unfeminine. No, un-feminist. That it isn’t the vet’s fault. So is it my fault?

            Maybe that is what she was really saying. My fault for being unfeminine. Because that is what men like him want, even though they say they are modern. I am seventy something years old and sometimes I think like a forty something lady who still wants to get married.

            Remarried. Remember when? It is funny what the words have in common. Re. It means again. Doing or living or being – but for the second time so it is better. There was a time when I was going to be better. That time was not my fault. But Ruby’s.

            These are not things a mother should think about her daughter. 

            How do I stop this?

            Oh I see.

            End recording.

***

I used to think my mother wanted to be remembered. That she wanted to matter, her existence validated, her name written on the blockchain of history. Like anyone else, surely all she hoped was that whatever we made, what proof of our lives we left, others would believe it was worth preserving.

         Later, I realised what she wanted was simpler, and stranger. She wanted to remember. Everything. How? It was unclear to me, as a teenager.  Surely nobody could remember everything. Surely nobody wanted to remember everything. I was twenty-eight when I finally understood why. My mother was sixty-six, a number that felt like it should have significance. ‘Nothing. It means nothing,’ said my mother when I asked, at the start of her sixty-sixth year. ‘Ask me again if I get to eighty-eight.’ Eight being a number of good fortune in Chinese tradition, two of them being doubly fortuitous, and perhaps making it to eighty-eight years itself a lucky break. Of course, looking back, sixty-six is now fraught with unluckiness, the age at which my mother received her diagnosis from the specialist in neurogenerative disorders. Early onset, with a timeframe of three years to five in which she would begin to experience worsening symptoms. Symptoms are supposed to be what you get with the flu. Also, devastating neural disconnection inside of seven years. Those were his exact words? Those were his exact words. And no, there wasn’t anything anyone could do. Medical advances hadn’t advanced far enough; the most sophisticated algorithms were too crude to wire the fragile mind against its own destruction. I pictured the brain, taken hostage by a group of traitorous cells, blowing up its own archives in uncontrolled blasts. Blowing up my mother from the inside out.

         Yet she had a plan for her own treatment, one that relied only peripherally on algorithms. She would save her own life, store up her every experience in the hope of creating a second brain, a second self she could turn to as her own memories deteriorated.

         ‘I have always known,’ she confided. ‘I only didn’t know when.’

         A spit test, taken against my dad’s advice and without his knowledge, had confirmed the disease’s genetic presence two years and four months after I was born. And inside these moments she relayed to me, I understood more about my mother than I had in nearly three decades of guessing how to be a good daughter.

         ‘This is for you, Ruby. All my data. Everything about your mother. Build it so it makes sense. Tell my story.’

         Those weren’t her exact words. Of course there is a record of what she really said, online. I just remember what she meant. 

***

People working in lifetime videofeel always say that a life only makes sense when you look at it from the end. We all rely on a tool of the trade, InQuist, an intelligent program that analyses decades’ worth of memories and suggests connections. Even the best editors work about half manually, half with the InQuist, and since each editor’s InQuist learns their habits and the type of edits they like to make, often times people will just let the InQuist suggest a storyline based on recurrent themes.

         In commercial videofeel, you learn pretty quick that purpose and motivation are things you add later. The InQuist can find any narrative you want if you just set the right filters. That’s where us editors come in.

         I can screen for Devotion and Engagement, prioritise Laughter, Smiles, Accelerated Heart Rate. It’s one of my Happiness filters. Every editor has several Happiness filters, because happiness means different things to different customer profiles. Happiness is what almost everyone requests, so we work really hard to get it right for each customer. Obviously, it’s rare to get it perfect on someone’s first videofeel so we promote packages of six or more.

         By now, I have my mother down. Marie says my videofeels are the best sort of reminiscence therapy she’s come across in her career. Such a devoted daughter, you must be very close to your mother. I’ll nod and offer her a discount if she ever wants one made. Marie is like a filter herself – she sees what she wants in me and my mother and when she’s around, we play up to it, compile the relevant versions of ourselves. At least I do. I guess my mother these days is for real the benign old lady Marie thinks she is. Mostly.

         On my screen, the InQuist has compiled several new memories, but it requires my approval for the incorporation of a fresh character. ‘Always steam from frozen,’ this familiar-looking man is saying, and my mother smiles so hard her dimple appears. I sketch a net around the man’s face so the InQuist can find more of him.

         When it does, I’m surprised how much of him there is. I google his face and it’s then that I remember. Martin. She had dated him in those first surreal years after Dad left. They’d been on and off for a few months before she realised he wasn’t right for her. Only that’s not the story her data is showing. I’m scrolling past weeks and weeks until I realise I’ve passed a whole year. Had they remained in contact, done that thing where you say you’ll stay friends, only they went ahead and did it? I would never have imagined that of my mother, not after my dad.

            I let the InQuist generate the running order, compile the clips of that Martin guy. Then I make some cosmetic edits and send my mother the completed videofeel, a self-contained world she can enter over and over, safe in the knowledge that nothing bad can happen anymore.