I find my mother’s leg wandering the fashion district in black kitten heels. The woman who wears it now has a titanium left leg, the rainbow array of passing neon signs, make an aurora on the sidewalk. The arms look real, but could be silicon moulding over cybernetic parts. She holds herself straight. The bumps of her spine align in needle like accuracy; I follow her as she shops. I recognized the leg from the greying blotch at the ankle; at one time it was a cat standing on its hind legs. It was the only tattoo my mother had. My father had talked her into it. Convincing her that reverence for blank skin in the age of augments and neural interfaces was unfashionable. She is a woman of cargo pants and two t-shirts. She was also a woman in love. He picked up tattooing as a hobby, just as he picked up fatherhood. His interests were fleeting. When she reaches the knub of her knee, she consoles herself through her clean skin. The warm oil she rubs from limb to limb is absorbed with silent prayer. She clicks her tongue in the rhythm of phantom footsteps and believes he is banished. 

I had wondered where her leg would go. The pamphlets told us; genetic research, or frozen waiting to be donated. The doctor that cut off her leg consulted a talking sphere before he operated. It projected a glowing dotted line illustrating where to cut, the rest of her body was covered in red light. I feared without the clear indication he would have cut an arm instead. 

These Assistant Spheres are scattered through businesses, each with different accents and voices fit to please their owners. This one sounded exactly like the doctor. The doctor asked approval for diagnoses and the sphere would say in his voice,  That’s exactly right, Doctor. Good job.

 I often wondered if this was a fetish for him. He got a glint in his eye and a sickly smile as his own voice told him he was a good and smart man. I thought he was neither good nor smart. 

When my mother’s leg was placed in a silver tray, I opened our bank account. The blue screen flashed across my arm. I had to shake it to stop the glitching. The implant was old, put in when I was a gangly little tween. Normally an interface spanned the whole inner arm, mine was half the size. 

I waited for the credits to add up. 

Her leg gave us enough for half a year’s rent. 

My used underwear in the doctor’s pocket gave us enough for winter clothes. 

The woman wearing my mother’s leg stomps out the butt of a cigarette and reaches to light another. They cluster around her feet under the shade of a false tree. I recognized the silver emblem on the strap of the heels. A designer brand from the first district. Entering was invite-only. 

The models were an amalgamation of features, they were never real. I found familiar features within my neighbours and strangers walking through the street. The lower districts don’t have a store, only a dress up game at bus stops. It was a cruel tease, virtually placing beautiful clothes on bodies worn from endless labour and unending debt.  I could stand in front of the glass wall, scrolling through their latest outfits, to see myself in a short dress. The sequins jumped across my body like water with each swish of my hip. The game produced smooth long legs and suggested knee-high socks, and slouchy leather boots. The homeless man under the bench laughed as I chose an audacious hat, topped with a faux peacock feather. He claims to have seen a real peacock, I only saw them on TV. 

There’s a show on Channel 24, Resurrected Realms; the host is a nepo baby. He’s created a biodome within his mansion. Each week he shows off plants and animals long extinct. He approaches them like he would a pet dog, lies in their straw, walks amongst their cage. His warm accent teaches us of their once great lives. My favourite episode was about elephants. He keeps reproducing the same one through gene mutation, her name is always Sonia. Her past lives are buried under a banana tree, warm red fruit sprouting in clusters, falling, then rotting into the grasses. I imagine Sonia touching the dirt with her trunk, wondering why she smells her own death. 

I follow the woman to an alley, the surveillance drones are lit red, but the lenses neither tighten nor retract. They are merely there for show. She stands in front of a silver door, dented in various places, stickers, and graffiti litter the surface. I duck behind a garbage bin when she looks around the alley before knocking. A hulking man greets her. He’s replaced the top half of his head with a metal fishbowl, various wires and lights intertwine around his skull, with a whirring of gears he changes his eyes. Forgers are scattered through the city, fighting each other for the best price in black market augments. 

When my mother was wheeled out of surgery in a self-driving chair, I texted my uncle. We aren’t blood related, he owns a bar and lets my mother use the back room to wax bikinis.  When the landlord comes to collect rent in his second hand pin-stripe suit, Uncle hides me in the closet, so my mother can claim she lives alone. Rent is cheaper that way. Uncle wanted to pay a Forger to make a new leg. She was known for eye transplants and missing kidneys, most of them are. My mother insisted she didn’t need two legs to wax bikinis.  She didn’t need two legs for most things. She demanded I take her to the local junkyard and fashioned a crutch out of a pipe and what could be someone’s titanium shoulder.

The Forger at the door bends down to meet the woman’s eyes. I watch her step back with my mother’s leg. He’s assessing her; reading her interface history, seeing where she’s been, who she’s talked to. He waves his metal hand inside and they both disappear behind the door. I could walk away. Go to the bar and wait for my mother to finish with her clients. Tell Uncle what I saw and complain about the economy with an overly drunk man at the bar. I could forget the woman who owns my mother’s leg and hope the Forger steals her kidney. But I couldn’t move. There’s a window above the garbage bin, opened slightly enough to get myself through. The warm light from inside washes over me, I tell myself it’s a sign. I had imagined a more sinister place with metal walls and outlined placements for his favourite bone saw. Unfortunately, the Forger decorates like everyone’s grandmother and operates in his kitchen. His surgical tools are spread across the counter beside a half-eaten sandwich. The Medchair takes up most of the space, with floating screens and blinking displays. The woman lays down looking at the ceiling, the Forger speaks to her in a small reassuring voice. She passes out and the slow beeping of her heart fills the room. He wraps his big meaty hand around my mother’s leg and twists. The hydraulic attachments release with a click and hiss. He puts it on the table behind him and spends a miserable amount of time picking a song, his tastes varying from god awful to worse. He settles for something that sounds like a car crash and focuses on the bundle of wires inside her knee. 

My mother’s leg sits there on another silver tray. I could take it. Drag it home through the back alleys, leave a snail trail of pink body glitter. It could live beside the guitars at the bar, propped up on a stand, waiting for someone to ask about it. I could yell from across the room, That’s my mom’s leg! — and still she will only have one. We don’t have the funds to reattach it. My mother might not want it. I imagine she has said her ‘goodbyes’, finding the act of grieving practiced. I wonder how many things she has left behind – keepsakes and memories; traded like secrets, lost without ceremony. She cannot have a room of her own, a vanity, a trinket shelf or a moment of silence.

Maybe I am the only one missing her leg.

As she sits in the spare supply room sliding hot wax over course hair, does she wonder about her toes?  Does she wonder what shade they are or where they’re going? Does she ever reach for the part that isn’t there and forget that it went missing?

Sometimes I worry she will vanish piece by piece. 

I reach for the limb. I am crouched in the dark, my toes stiff, my heart racing. When my hands touch the skin, it’s hairless and cold. Limbs are heavier than they seem. This limb doesn’t feel like my mother’s. Even with the scars and patchwork sunspots.

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