Limbo by Lauren Bender

We have no problem insisting
you will be rebuilt at some point,

even if we don't know how yet.

You may be without hope, but
we're scientists. We never doubt

we will get what we want

through the work of doubting
everything else. So risk it, then,

have a gamble. You could be rich

and want to preserve yourself
in full. You'd need only nano bots

to drink the freeze out of your blood.

Or less rich and want to try
for the head only (but what guarantee

you wouldn't be attached to a body

belonging to someone else?) or
a cluster of cells, which would call

for the more sophisticated gene

manipulation. Then again, you may
be wondering, how is that different

from a clone? And you don't want a clone.

A clone is you but not you. And a you
produced from a few specks of you

can't be you either. So much of you

regrowth, where is the part that
was you before? Is it visible? Is it

dissolved in the soup of your essence,

tasteless, without the memories and
fixations of your current identity,

you as a blank slate, a you do-over?

A you by any other choice is decidedly
someone else. In fact, why wait for your

restoration when you already don't exist?

...

Lauren Bender is a graduate of Green Mountain College where she earned her BFA in Writing and served as co-editor of the literary magazine Reverie. Her work has appeared in Barbaric Yawp, IDK Magazine, Coe Review, and Tulane Review and is forthcoming in The Lindenwood Review and The Broken Plate. She lives in Burlington, VT.