Counting Heads

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On March 30, 2092, the Department of Health and Human Services issued Eleanor and me a permit. The undersecretary of the Population Division called with the news and official congratulations. We were stunned by our good fortune. The undersecretary instructed us to contact the National Orphanage. There was a baby in a drawer in Jersey with our names on it. We were out of our minds with joy.

ELEANOR AND I had been together a year by then. We’d met at a reception in Higher Soho, which I attended in realbody. A friend said, “Sammy Harger, is that really you? What luck! There’s a woman here who wants to meet you.”

I told him thanks but no thanks. I wasn’t in the mood. Not even sure why I’d come. I was recovering from a weeklong stint of design work in my Chicago studio. In those days I was in the habit of bolting my studio door and immersing myself in the heady universe of packaging design. It was my true creative calling, and I could lose all sense of time, even forgetting to eat or sleep. Henry knew to hold my calls. Henry was my belt valet system and technical assistant, and he alone attended me. I could go three or four days at a time like that, or until my Muse surrendered up another award-winning design.

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