FEATURE - ECHOES

by Peppa Hammat, age 13

He lies next to me, on top of the sheets.

The real Luke got cold at night. He’d steal the blanket, then cuddle me with a guilty laugh.

123 He wakes up three seconds after me every morning, Luke’s echo doesn’t know he used to wake early.

I need to stop. Thinking like that defeats the point of keeping his Echo.

“Good morning,” he says, brushing my hair off my face.

“Morning.” I yawn.

He kisses me.

I feel him there, though I know it’s just tricks in my brain, mimicking lips.

“You remember our first kiss?” I ask, forgetting for a second.

“Of course,” he smiles “we were out in the rain, your hair was all wet -” he ends his sentence with another kiss.

But it doesn’t cover the fact that he is wrong.

The first time we kissed was in his painting studio.

I smudged his painting leaning in too far, he said it gave it character.

And he left it on the easel, on display.

                                         *

He’s not in the studio. The real him would’ve already been painting.

I walk to the big wooden cupboard where he kept his work.

The door creaks, the only sound filling the quiet room.

I stare at the stacked canvases, a routine of mine now.

A painting catches my attention so I pull it out.

My fingers still over the canvas. It’s the painting. The one I smudged when we first kissed.

It’s a beautiful vase of roses.

Each one different, imperfect.

Like him.

I wipe away a welling tear when the door squeaks open.

“Hey, I knew I'd find you here” he smiles, a straight smile. His smiles used to be wonky.

He sits by the window, leaning the painting against the cupboard. I go to him.

“Just, looking at some old paintings.”

He smiles, pulling me onto his lap.

I giggle, glancing out the window, nearly forgetting the grief.

But a digital billboard glows a few sky-rises away. A bright light in the grey.

The ad’s for AI Echoes, realistic holograms you can see, hear, feel.

“You good, El?” he asks. He never called me Elara or El, he called me Gremlin, said that I left crumbs in the bed and smudged his paint.

“Just thinking,”

“Oh, and I noticed you limping before. What happened?”

A truck hits us.

The car rolls.

It stops upside down.

He’s gone.

My leg twisted.

Pain.

                                                  *

The boiling water steams as I pour it into both cups.

I don’t need to, Luke’s echo can’t drink. But it feels wrong not making him one.

I walk to the spare room, his art studio.

My limp makes the coffee threaten to spill.

“Made you coffee,” I say, setting it near his clean brushes

Clean.

He never used to clean them.

“Thanks,” he smiles.

“I fixed it, what do you think?” He gestures at his painting, tilting to the side so I can see it for the first time.

My stomach twists.

A lump sticks in my throat.

It’s the vase of roses.

It’s too perfect, every stroke smooth, every flower the same.

I want to scream.

It's the last true thing I had from him, a memory.

The next morning, I wake up alone.

I only make one cup of coffee.

The other mug stays in the cupboard, untouched.

I walk into the studio and set my coffee by the easel.

The perfect painting still sits there, each rose identical, sterile.

I don’t smear it, just turn the canvas to face the wall.

I thought an Echo would help.

I was wrong.

And for the first time, I let the silence sit with me.