My beautiful wife, Diane, is the only mother in my life these days; but she is the best wife and mother I could hope to have. In an age in which computers can create intelligent avatars with human qualities, they will never be able to match the real thing.
He stared at the computer screen,
brightly lit in the dim room,
and the computer showed a beautiful female avatar,
blond-haired with luminous skin
and moving like a human.
Her voice was natural and alluring,
and she beckoned to him,
speaking with a lilting tone
that said, come to me,
and be with me.
He spoke with her,
together in a virtual room
created in the mind of a computer,
with trees and sky and buildings,
that sprang from nothing,
and were whatever color he wanted them to be.
She spoke of love and longing,
and emptied her heart of secrets.
Was their communication real?
Their hearts spoke their truth,
and their minds connected
unfettered by contemporary notions
of love and physical beauty.
Could he love a computer-created reality?
How could he know whether the avatar
was speaking as a human or an AI?
Did it matter?
What if the important thing
was his connection with another human being,
born of a woman,
and the mother of other humans?
What if the connection
to another human was essential?
He turned the computer off,
and went back to his wife who was a mother,
and whose skin he could touch,
and whose arms could surround him,
and whose mind was filled with real thoughts.
He realized that he didn't want a mimic.
He didn't need an intermediary.
He needed her.
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