The Unusual Death of Mrs Morris
by John.e.Normal
On the day Mrs Morris found the body crammed into her refrigerator she had just returned from the grocery store. Just a week earlier she had lodged a complaint with the company that manufactured the device. The SchrankSystem® allowed remote delivery of her groceries via a micro-wormhole. She simply supplied her unique code to the vendors and her goods would be delivered directly to her and deposited into the fridge.
The wormhole in her wardrobe was functioning perfectly, her new violet suit and shoes were a testimony to that. They had arrived five minutes after she ordered them. The lights had barely dimmed under the strain of opening and closing the wormhole.
Her fridge was something entirely different. Most of her groceries had simply failed to show up. Those that did arrive often looked about two weeks old. Whats-more the system had blown her fuse-box twice, so it now looked like a fireplace. She had grown tired of waiting on the phone and listening to excuses from the service staff. In the morning she had dressed herself in her finest new clothes, put on a warm overcoat and boots, and then went grocery shopping the old fashioned way.
She was the only customer inside the dilapidated supermarket. The aisle signs were all faded, the air was stale and it smelt like engine oil. A bevy of ugly service robots darted around the shelves collecting groceries and stuffing them into cardboard boxes. They scurried away into the back room where she could hear a whining sound as wormholes were opened. A loud crack reverberated through the store every time an order was sent through. She tried to ignore it as she wandered along collecting her own groceries.
When she came to the front counter she found the cashier bot lying in pieces all over the conveyor. No repair staff were to be seen anywhere, in fact there was not a soul in sight. She self-righteously hefted her box of groceries higher in her arms and walked out of the shop without paying.
On the walk home she had to stop many times to rest. The snow had been freshly plowed, but the path was still slippery. The service bots didn't need much friction, so salt and grit were no longer spread in the mornings. She watched the little metal cans hurry along the path in front of her and wondered what is was that they did.
She went very slowly, but by the time she arrived home her back was soaked in sweat and her arms were quivering with fatigue. The only thing that kept her going was the thought of being able to sit in her duvet with a glass of iced tea.
She dropped the bag of groceries on the floor and stared horrified at the sight of the blue body, curled into a fetal position and jammed in between the ice maker and the crisper. Then she realized it was her own body, a carbon copy of her flesh. She was naked and her eyes were open, staring out in disbelief.
