My hands shake, indenting the lip of the ceramic cup I'm molding. I swivel and look at the other android artisans on the factory floor, robotic hands ablur ensuring each cup is perfect—and they ... [+]
Andrew Rucker Jones is a former IT expert and American expatriate living in Germany with his Georgian wife and their three children. He quit his day job to become an author, and he has yet to regret it. You can read his blog at http://selfdefeatistnavelgazing.wordpress.com/. "The Second Person" is in Short Circuit #17, Short Édition's quarterly review.
The old woman opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and sat up in bed. She turned this way and that, peering at the objects in the small room: a low, narrow bed with fairytale figures carved in the headboard; a window behind her; a chest of drawers with discolored patches in the varnish around the handles and a mirror on top.
The woman rose slowly, then arched backward, hands pressed to her lower back. Her spine popped. She shuffled to the chest of drawers and picked up a framed picture of two women. The woman looked at herself in the mirror, then again at the picture. One of the photogr