Pizza Sunday by Santiago Eximeno

I keep my parents in the bottom drawer of the commode, next to the pump. Every Sunday, just after I finish preparing the pizza, I take them out and bring them into the living room. Fully inflated, sitting at the table, they look endearing. Before we start eating, I load the last updated copy of their remembrances into the dolls’ memories. I do not always remember to update the copies, and there is not a day that I do not say myself that I should add an alarm that goes off before I put them back in the drawer. The kids giggle when they see them, and when they mix up the words or they cannot remember what we talked about last week; but despite all these little inconveniences, we have a good time as a family. My wife, who has always been averse to these things, tells me to leave her out of the inflatable dolls, memory loads and all that nonsense. That when you die, you die, and that is it all.

As if science has not advanced a great deal.

As if I could go on living without inflating her every day.