Bridesicle by Will McIntosh

“Bridesicle” tells the story of a young woman named Mira who, after dying in a car crash, is frozen and maintained in the vault of a futuristic dating and mixer center where men go to pick out brides. These brides, like Mira, are all women frozen after death, waiting to be chosen and married to a man who will then pay to have her fully revived. The women are kept dead until a customer animates her in order to converse with her in sessions known as “dates.” She is then put under again and placed back into hibernation until someone else comes along to animate her.

            Being revived isn’t the only way to return from death. People can also choose to be “hitched” by having their psyche preserved and maintained within the mind of a host, who is usually a relative or a loved one. Mira herself, before her own death, was hitched by her mother, who constantly gave her grief and made her miserable, not only for loving a woman, but also in other aspects of her life. In order to escape her mother, Mira intentionally crashed her car on the hopes of muting her mother’s voice within her own head forever.

            I think this story has a lot to say about family relationships, and the pressures that come with those ties. In the story, Mira must go through life with her mother in her head, literally watching everything she does. There was nothing she could do without hearing her mother’s opinions and disapproval of her sexuality echoing in her own mind. Thus, her mother’s disapproval followed her everywhere, becoming part of her life, and so omnipresent and unbearable that she ended up killing herself in order to escape. Even after she woke up in the center, she noticed that all she could think about was the loss of her mother’s voice. It had been such an overbearing presence in her life that she couldn’t help but ponder about its absence. Similarly, when Neas showed up, the influence of his hitched wife’s opinions over with whom she wanted her husband to marry and raise a child conflicted with his grandfather Lycan’s favorable perception of Mira as a candidate. Neas doesn’t even begin questioning Mira until both the voices of his dead wife and grandfather come to a consensus, for he needs their opinion first in order to start considering her, even though, in the end, he’s the one who has to live with Mira and have a child with her. In the end, Mira was able to break free of her mother’s voice in the end, and instead, after Neas and his hitched family agree to revive her, decides to hitch her lover, Jeanette, who was also frozen in the vaults. She does this because, even though the pressures of omnipresent family ties can be tough to take at times, they can also be a good thing: to know that you are never alone and always have loved ones with you. As Neas explains, “Hitching has been a very powerful experience for us. Oona and I never dreamed we could be this close, and we’re happy to have dad and grandfather and great-grandmother as companions. I know I wouldn’t trade it for anything” (Bridesicle 10). Keeping your loved ones with you brings you closer to them, and being able to go through life sharing your experiences with the ones you love is a powerful and happy thing. That’s why Mira chose to hitch Jeanette. While her relationship with her mother was emotionally destructive, her relationship with Jeanette is both loving and caring, the kind of relationship that Mira needs, and would like to carry with her for the rest of her life.