Unclaimed¶
The pharmacy tech’s name tag reads Marisol in faded black ink. She knows the lie by the way the customer’s eyes dart to the left when they say their brother’s asthma inhaler is “almost full.” Almost full, but they need another. Almost full, but it’s an emergency. Marisol hands over the prescription bag with the orange tag that says * expires 06/30/3024 * and thinks about the drawer behind her desk, the one crammed with unclaimed bags, their digital tags still blinking faintly like fireflies in a jar.
Her brother texts mid-shift: Mom’s anniversary stream today. Wear the scarf. Don’t blow it. The scarf is polyester, itchy, the same one their mother wore in every family hologram before she died. The stream is a lie. The anniversary is a lie. Their mother’s avatar still sips virtual tea in the metaverse cottage they can’t afford to shut down, racking up maintenance fees that auto-deduct from their joint account. Marisol’s shift ends at six. The stream starts at seven.
After work, she walks to the city parks equipment shed to fetch the portable generator for the stream setup. The shed smells like wet concrete and rust. She finds the generator, but the drawer in the wall console is ajar. Inside, a dozen prescription bags glow. Their tags flicker with usernames: SunsetHiker, BookClubQueen, Luna_Moonbeam. One tag pulses in her mother’s shade of lipstick red. Marisol touches it.
The shed vanishes.
She stands in a pixelated meadow. Her mother’s avatar sits on a bench, sipping tea. “You’re early,” the avatar says. It doesn’t turn. “The generator’s late. Your brother will panic.”
Marisol’s throat tightens. The avatar’s teacup is a subscription item, $19.99/month. The meadow costs $50/year. The scarf around Marisol’s neck itches like a debt collector’s whisper.
“You’re costing us,” Marisol says. “The fees—”
“Your brother wanted the shrine,” the avatar interrupts. “He said it’s ‘good for the family brand.’” The quote marks glint.
Back in the shed, Marisol slams the drawer shut. Her brother’s voice crackles through the generator’s speaker: “Marisol, where are you? The stream’s buffering!”
She rips the red-tagged bag from the drawer. The meadow collapses. Her mother’s avatar fractures into code, screaming a string of declined payment notifications.
The generator dies.
At home, Marisol finds her brother in the dark, the scarf around his neck. “The stream crashed,” he says. “They’ll know she’s gone.”
Marisol tosses him the empty prescription bag. “They already did.”
Outside, the city’s maintenance drones hum. One hovers near the shed, scanning for unpaid digital estates. The drawer’s tags have gone dark.
Marisol’s final act: she logs into the metaverse, cancels the subscription, and lets the avatar dissolve into static. The refund is $247.12. Enough to cover the generator rental and a month of therapy.
The next day, a customer comes in for a refill. His eyes dart left. Marisol hands him the bag, says nothing.
The drawer stays closed.
The image that lingers: the red tag, flickering off like a candle drowned in rain.