"Wait, let me send a pic...." Darren closed one eye as he aimed his phone and snapped a picture, capturing the female figure in three quarter view, just before the turning stage she stood on spun her slowly away.

He gazed at the picture, ran his thumb over the screen, before attaching it to the a text and sending it. The female figure had turned back around and he gnawed on his lips as he briefly met eyes with her. They were glossier than one would be used to, the whites would glitter, something in the plastic, or enamel or whatever it was they used to manufacture eyes these days.

When he thought of real eyes, well, he could only think of Her, the time they'd been to Egypt to see the huge paws of the Sphinx, and dust had kicked into Her face, and she crouched and cried as she wiped it. Real eyes were a pain to have, jelly like and delicate, moist, and vulnerable, organs that just asked to give you pain until you came to your senses and got something indestructible in lavander or emerald or glittery gray.

Darren's phone buzzed on his hip, made him jump. "Yeah... yeah....looks real good huh? I mean one of the better models, right?....Yeah, that's her singing, pretty good, huh?"

He wrinkled his nose and looked at the female figure who put her mic down and tilted her head, just briefly a flicker of something crossed those perfect glittery eyes, and her lips parted. Could a machine remember? Darren's skin prickled.

Mom's last words were to beg Dad not to donate her body to science. But Dad couldn't bear to lose her.