“Young Miss Frankenstein Regrets”

In honor of the 2011 Rhysling Awards, I’m posting “Young Miss Frankenstein Regrets” below. It appeared in Volume 47 of ChiZine (April 2011).

by Camille Alexa

Reanimation gives rise to all sorts of

regrets, as one forgets the

repercussions sure to follow the

reappearance of the dead.

Recalling the fantasies of

reunion in which one indulged before

reactivating the machine one had

rebuilt in Great-Grandpa’s study,

reusing dusty parts and

reworking the old man’s blueprints after

rereading all his crumbling musty notes and

rewiring the entire neighborhood to

reroute all local power to the modest

reactor atop the roof (planning, of course, to

replace everything afterward), one

reheats the cryogenically frozen heirloom brain,

recombining purloined “found” parts to

revive dear Great-Grandpa and

reclaim days of past family glory.

Recovering from the scent of charred meat,

repulsed by Great-Grandpa’s mindless drooling and

reasserting control over one’s unfortunate

recoil from the outstretched avuncular arms

reaching for one’s throat in a most

repugnant and alarming manner, one

recollects one’s dream of

realizing ancestral legacy by

re-embarking on one’s great-grandfather’s work.

Reluctantly, one uses the cattle prod to halt the

repeated efforts of one’s ancestor to

release himself from the sturdy iron

restraints one had the merciful foresight to

reinforce before the experiment.

Reducing the power levels and

resetting the levers, one

retreats to a safer distance to seriously

reconsider (despite the family resemblance) having

reawakened a howling, incoherent monster so eerily

reminiscent of one’s dear late mother.

Really, one thinks as one unplugs the

reviving machines, waiting for the

resubsidence of all signs of pseudolife from one’s

redoubtable, famous, infamous forebear,

Reliving the past isn’t always so

regrettable, is it?