Sand Dollar

“Happy anniversary, love,” Roland slides a small wooden box across a burnt orange cloth to the center of the table, the warm candle glow dancing next to it. Their napkins on the table, crumbs surrounding near empty wine glasses. The waiter has come around three times since they finished eating eighty minutes ago - are you sure I can’t get you anything else? Really? You’re content just staring in each other’s eyes and chatting even though you’re embarking on your fifth year of marriage?

Josie sits up and scoots forward in her chair to bring the box over to her side. It’s handmade, no doubt. Roland is a fine hobbyist, and over the years he’s built shelves, nightstands, and even chairs for their home. Josie undoes the little latch on the front and flips open the case.

“The sand dollar!” She exclaims, the memory enveloping her instantly. She is at the beach on their first date where they built sand castles like children and uncovered the urchin. “I can’t believe you still had this.”

He beamed. “I kept it,” he said, “and I was waiting for year five. Do you remember why?”

She nods with a smile on her face. “They have five grooves in them,” she chuckles, and points to the side facing up “for eating,” she flips it over and points to the backside, “and also for gas exchanges.” Josie runs her fingers along the daisy like pattern, amazed that this porcelain circle was once a living being.

She looks up at Roland. “I love you so much,” she says. They lean in and kiss over the center of the table.

***

Back at their home, the bubble of romance that was their anniversary date dissolves into the mundanity of a weeknight bedtime routine. Roland goes to the kitchen to prepare the morning coffee and pack his lunch. Josie is in the bathroom washing her face.

“Babe,” she yells, squinting while she splashes water on her eyes, “don’t forget I’m home late tomorrow. It’s my team’s monthly check in. So eat without me.” She reaches out and feels around for a rag, face wet and eyes still closed. She dabs at her cheeks and forehead and realizes she hasn’t gotten a response from the kitchen.

“Did you hear me?” She waits a second, looking at herself in the mirror while she dries her neck with the washcloth. After a minute, her eyebrows burrow in confusion.

“Hun?” She walks out of the bathroom towards where he stands over the kitchen sink. He’s not turning around or responding to her heeds. “Roland, what’s going on?” She goes to his right side, where his hand is outstretched to the faucet. His eyes are wide open staring out the window, but he is a statue.

“Ro, stop that. You’re freaking me out,” Josie waves her hand in front of his eyes. They are completely vacant, like he is sleepwalking.

“Seriously Roland, what the hell,” she starts slapping his arm, then his cheeks.

She runs around to his left side, takes hold of his other arm, which is by his side, and vigorously shakes it around. It feels like dead weight, and when she lets go it falls back down at his side, limp.

“What the f—“ she whispers to herself, looking him up and down to find some sign of life in her catatonic husband. She runs to the bedroom, where her phone is plugged in, scrolls through her contacts and calls her mother. She presses the speaker button and the dial tone blares while she holds the phone up to her chin with one hand, and the other tugs at her hairline. She speeds back through the hallway that connects their bedroom to the kitchen, to where Roland is still paused like a cartoon.

“Hi sweetheart, how was din—“

“Mom, I don’t know what’s wrong, but Roland’s just frozen in the kitchen.” She starts frantically pacing behind the Roland sculpture, gesturing to him while she tries to explain to her mother, ”he’s not responding and his eyes are all glazed over. I don’t know what happened, he was fine all night. I just don’t understand what is going on.”

“Wh-what? Slow down, you’re talking really fast. He’s not moving? Is he passed out?”

“No! He’s standing! His right arm is held up! His eyes are open!”

“Well is he breathing?” Her mom asks.

Josie rushes over and puts her ear up to his lips. There is nothing coming out. She puts her two fingers to his carotid artery.

“Mom, he…he doesn’t have a pulse.” But how is he still standing up and holding his arm out like that? She thinks. Is this an emergency or is it not?

“Then I think you have to take him to the hospital, honey.”

***

It is not easy for Josie to move a six-foot, 240-pound rigid man. Lucky for her she has a wheelchair in the basement that she keeps around for when her elderly relatives visit. She lines up the chair behind Roland and shoves him down, with no sense of ease. His knees do not bend and he is a sort of a diagonal plank over the chair. She has to buckle his knees for him and push with all her might to get his butt aligned with the seat. But the wheelchair keeps sliding back with his weight, despite it being locked. Eventually with the movement the chair is shuffled all the way up against the wall and she is able to stabilize it enough to get him seated. She wheels him out to the car, when she realizes she could have - and should have - called an ambulance, for professional people moving. She was just so distraught and couldn’t bare the thought of waiting for an ambulance while Roland was pulseless. But she already made it this far, so she uses every small bit of strength she has to hoist him into the backseat.

There are stretchers on the other end that make it far easier to move Roland from car to ER. Josie explains to two doctors in blue scrubs, while they wheel him through the ER, that he simply froze out of the blue and his heart is not beating. Roland’s right hand is still stretched up, to the ceiling now that he is on his back on the stretcher.

The ER doctors, who are masked and goggled, look at each other, then out straight ahead. What was that? Josie thinks. Why aren’t they saying anything? They continue wheeling him through the ER’s tunnel of beeping machines and fluorescent lights, to an elevator at the end of the hall.

“Um, what’s happening? Why aren’t you triaging him in the emergency room?” Josie pipes up while they wait for the elevator.

The doctors glance at each other again. One of them then looks up at the numbers above the elevator descending to their level. The other one turns to Josie.

“Your husband is exhibiting signs of a…rare condition. We’re taking him up to a special department.”

“Special dep—how do you know that so soon? You haven’t taken his vitals or anything! Don’t you have follow up questions for me?” Josie is flabbergasted. The doctor turns away from her as the elevator dings and the doors slide open.

“Why are you ignoring me? Tell me what’s going on with my husband!” Josie’s voice is louder now. The doctors push the stretcher into the elevator, and Josie follows. When the doors close, the bleeps and hums of the ER evaporate and they are in a vacuum of quiet.

“Hello? Answer me!” Josie is yelling now. The doctors don’t look at her. The elevator inches up - 1, 2, 3

“This is unacceptable!”

4, 5

“I’m reporting you! This is not hospital protocol! You’re supposed to assess him in the ER and keep me updated!”

6, 7, 8, 9

“Where are you taking us?”

The elevator screeches to a halt at the penthouse, the 11th floor. It dings and the doors spread. There is a young woman seated directly across the elevator entryway at a small card table, typing on her computer. She looks up and smiles at them.

“Another one?” She asks the doctors, who nod. “Send them through.”

Josie’s sudden overwhelming sense of unease leaves her speechless. She locks eyes with the woman at the card table, who just smiles at her, hands rested lightly on her keyboard, while Josie follows the doctors down the hall. They enter a patient room, where the doctors park Roland’s stretcher. They begin to exit the room.

“Wait, where are you go—“ the door shuts behind them. Josie is stunned and there is a deep pit of fear in her chest. She reaches out for Roland’s outstretched hand and cups it with hers. She gives it a squeeze.

After a few short minutes the doorknob turns and a man in a lab coat enters with a clipboard. He has the same cheery smile glued to his face as the secretary at the card table, only his is under aviator glasses and a thick chevron mustache.

“Good evening! I’m Dr. Birdwhistle.” What the hell kind of name is that, thinks Josie.

“And you must be…” Dr. Birdwhistle flips some pages up from his clipboard. “Ah! Josie Stone. And this is Roland Stone.”

“H-how do you know our names?” Josie stammers, a coldness trickling down her spine.

Dr. Birdwhistle pulls up a chair and motions for Josie to sit before taking a seat himself, across from her. He crosses his legs and rests his clipboard on his knee, hands on clipboard.

“Mrs. Stone,” he begins. “You met your husband eight years ago on a dating app, did you not?”

Josie squirms in her seat “How did you—“

“Have you noticed anything peculiar or… notable about the relationship you and Mr. Stone have shared?”

“Wh-what?”

“Have you noticed anything strange about the relationship?” Dr. Birdwhistle rephrases the question. He’s looking intently at her, curiosity in his eyebrows.

“What? What kind of question is that? What is going on here?”

Dr. Birdwhistle lets out a small sigh. “Of course.” He clears his throat.

“Josie, you and Mr. Stone were part of an experiment that ensued across dating apps eight years ago.”

Josie sits up and pulls her chin back, side eyeing the doctor. “What do you mean? An experiment?”

“We created artificial candidates to send out into the dating world. To see how well we could simulate love and affection,” Dr. Birdwhistle’s tone is flat, as though reciting a script. "We felt that dating apps had done a lot of damage to how people interacted with each other in the real world. We thought providing perfectly matched candidates might help stir up real connections for people looking for them. When you signed up for the app, you consented to the experiment. But it was only intended to last for one decade, which ended today. We’ve powered down all of our simulated daters.”

“I’m sorry,” Josie lets out a huff that is almost a chuckle, “you did what?”

Dr. Birdwhistle continued. “I know this might come as a shock to you, but we’re ready to collect some data. So, did you notice anything off about your relationship?”

Josie grows angry when the doctor just blinks back at her, feigning concern in his eyebrows. “No, there is nothing ‘off’ about our relationship! Our relationship is none of your damned business. Can you wake my husband up now so we can get the hell out of here?”

“I could do that, yes,” Dr. Birdwhistle replies evenly despite Josie’s outburst. “If that is what you want. But I’ll need you to answer my questions first about the realness of the feelings on your end. I’ll also need to examine Roland, before I power him back on and let you go.”

“Power him back on? You mean you shut him down?”

“Well, yes Mrs. Stone. We need to collect data now, like I said.”

Josie turns her head to her husband on the stretcher next to her. Is this true?

“You’ll have the choice now of whether or not you want to continue to be a participant,” the doctor says. “If you’d like, I can examine him now while you collect your thoughts in the waiting room.”

“Whether or not I want to continue?”

“Yes. We can shut him down permanently now, if you’d rather.” Dr. Birdwhistle gets up and opens the door, gesturing out for her. “Why don’t you take some time to think about it in the waiting room?”

***

Josie’s mind is racing as she sits in one of the waiting room’s floral vinyl covered chairs. She rifles through memories. Does this mean I am incapable of dating someone that wasn’t designed for me and only me? Her eyes are spaced out on a still life painting of a fruit bowl hanging up across from her. It’s the only artwork in the stiff room.

It felt impossible. She’d fallen completely in love with this man, practically from the moment they’d met. She was skeptical of the apps, but she felt drawn to him through the messages they’d sent back and forth, discussing Radiohead albums and a shared obsession with Settlers of Catan. The moment she saw him in person, she felt every muscle in her body relax. He was home. She’d felt it from that very first day at the beach. How could that connection be simulated?

“You too?” She hears from her left. She looks over. There’s another young woman in the waiting room, eyes puffy.

Josie let’s out a bit of vocal fry, but doesn’t quite know what to say.

“I’ve been sitting here for three hours,” the woman says, more to herself than to Josie. She must be in her thirties, a similar age to Josie. “Racking my brain for signs that he is…what they say he is. And I guess — maybe? There might have been some stuff that seemed…robotic? I just don’t know.” The woman takes a big, shaky breath. “I just don’t know,” she exhales.

Josie shakes her head in disbelief. She thinks about when she listened for Roland’s pulse earlier that evening. Did he ever have one? She’d never thought to check before tonight. She’d felt his heart beating when she’d lay on his chest, surely. Right? Was it a simulated heartbeat?

She scoots a seat closer to the woman, so there’s only one empty chair between them, instead of two. “Did they power your partner down too?”

The woman nods. She speaks between huffs and sniffles. “Yes. my boyfriend of six years. Just around 8pm. We were… watching TV, so at f-first I thought he was just asleep. But he…he wasn’t laughing at any of the funny b-bits and I realized his eyes were wide open…” She makes a choking sound and cries, “how could they do this to us?”

Josie shakes her head. If the experiment hadn’t been run, she wouldn’t have met Roland. She can’t imagine that, with everything they’d gone through together. “Was he just programmed to be my perfect match?” She says out loud “Does that cheapen the relationship?”

“What I don’t understand,” Josie continues, “is that it’s not like he was perfect. We fought, too…” But of course, even the fights were simulated, she thought.

She remembers the box in her jacket pocket, and sticks her hand in, stroking the smooth wood with her thumb. She keeps her gaze forward, resting on the still-life. Roland handmade the box. Roland does woodworking. He makes her coffee every morning. He kisses her before bed every night. He looks good in forest green t-shirts.

“Yes! They programmed it all! None of it was real!” The woman lets out a sob and lands her head in her hands.

Roland picking out his tie. Roland going to work in the white Jetta he’d owned since before they met. Roland hanging up his keys on the way in and planting a kiss on her cheek. Chopping vegetables. Lounging on the couch. Unable to hide the tears when they watched “Snoopy Come Home” every year on Christmas day after "A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Snoring softly some nights. Loudly other nights, if the air was dry or if he’d drank alcohol. Going for his weekend runs. Scrolling through his news app. Rubbing her feet after she’d had a long day.

Josie stares blankly at the woman breaking down a chair over. “No, I think it was real,” she says softly. “It was all real.”

***

Roland insists on driving. Josie consents, despite the fact that he was technically just a hospital patient, because she is exhausted and distraught. Plus, Josie has the newfound knowledge that he doesn’t really need to sleep, and he can’t actually get sick.

Roland is also in a state of disbelief, and they ride home in silence.

Josie pulls the box out of her pocket and takes the sand dollar in her hand, gently rubbing the grooves. One petal type shape poking up to the top, two at nine o’clock and three o’clock, two more at seven and five. Slits evenly spaced out around the perimeter of the shell. Nearly a perfectly circled clock. How is it that something organic is so symmetrical? It strikes her in that moment as quite unsettling.

“Josie, I’m…I’m so sorry,” Roland sounds defeated. He’s staring out at the dark road. “If I’d have known what I…what I was, I never would have…”

She looks back down at the sand dollar. She remembers Roland telling her that if it were alive, it would feel wet and velvety. It would be coated with little hairs that wiggle.  It would be brown. Their sand dollar was dead on scene - chalky and white, with no quivering hairs.

“I know,” Josie whispers back.