It started with one LCD skin-pigmented screen embedded in the back of my hand. The latest must-have, marketed worldwide as The Helper. It looked like my skin but wasn’t.

 

As a child I’d written with pen on the back of my hand, some odd detail I wanted to remember and was sure to forget: the train number, an important date or time, a birthdate, that would later get sweated or washed off. The Helper fixed all that. You could write with a finger, or type if you prefer. It could tell the time, take calls, scan the Internet, even take photos and videos through a camera device in your palm. It did everything the old-fashioned mobile phones could do, but with the advantage it was always with you, always charged by your own body.

 

And it always looked just like your skin.

 

Until one day it didn’t.

 

“Your Helper looks… weird,” said my husband looking down at my hand.

 

The Helper was designed to effortlessly merge with skin. A LCD skin-pigmented screen, complete with freckles, was displayed when not in use. But now clear demarcation lines were showing, a strange rectangle on the back of my hand. I traced around the edges with my finger. The problem wasn’t with The Helper, the problem was with my own skin that was beginning to age, wrinkle and yellow around it.

 

“You should get that looked at,” said my husband.

 

That was the beginning.

 

The clinic told me I had a choice. I could update the skin of the Helper to match my aging skin at a low cost, or I could update my own skin by extending the Helper.

 

I chose to extend.

 

It would have been odd to have had one youthful arm, and so I opted for both arms to be fitted with LCD skin-pigmented screens projecting the soft fleshiness of youth.

 

“Good choice,” said the clinician. “It’s what most of our clients are choosing. Why age when we don’t have to? Your arms won’t look a day over twenty.”

When I came home my husband was impressed. “Your skin looks so—”

 

“Young?” I completed for him.

 

“Yes.” But his eyes frowned as they travelled to my neck and face. The other parts of me.

 

I was back at the clinic within a month. “I want more.”

 

The clinician understood. “Everyone wants more,” she said.

 

Surgical cuts were made in my neckline and LCD Helpers installed. I awoke to a face battered and bruised, until the new extended Helper was switched on.

“Ah,” said my husband. “Much better.”

 

And there I was. The new me, in the mirror. Magically returned to my twenties. Smooth, supple, dewy skin, no wrinkle cream needed, no plastic surgery, no Botox — my skin the magical illusion of extended LCD screens.

 

“With more Helpers they do require more energy from your body. We recommend not activating them all the time,” advised the clinician.

 

“Of course,” I said.

 

But I never switched them off. Even in my sleep I projected the image of “young me” and tried to forget the “old me” that existed underneath. My husband caressed my young arms, and held my young face lovingly. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. I could barely feel his touch, but I smiled anyway.

 

My hair was next.

 

“It’s starting to look a bit scraggly… a bit old,” said my husband.

 

“It’s dead anyway,” said the clinician as she shaved my head and inserted a Helper under my scalp to deliver me long, brown, lustrous holographic waves. I would be forever young, in the places that counted. “You can change the colour too, or go longer, shorter, whatever. No need to shampoo or brush. It’s bliss.”

I ran my hands through my non-existent hair, and the image shimmered in the mirror. “Wonderful,” I breathed.

 

“Remember to give your body a break. Turn off your Helpers when you don’t need them.”

 

The clinician had no idea. I needed them all the time.

 

On my way home I bumped into a gorgeous red-headed woman. “Sorry—” I began, but my words caught in my throat. For a second the woman’s Helpers had faltered, her screens had glitched and a pale, bald, emaciated woman appeared. She looked as bewildered as me. I hurried away, eager to put distance between us and to join the street full of young people, like me.

 

“Sublime,” breathed my husband, when I returned home. He stroked the air above my head and ran his hands along my hardened arms.

 

I felt so… tired. The Helpers, and the walk home… had taken so much energy.

 

“Wait. Let me capture this moment. The New You,” said my husband. He held out his own Helper. The one embedded in his hand.

 

“Smile,” he said.

 

And there I was. A picture of me on his Helper. Me with my newly long, brown wavy hair, soft skin, full red lips.

 

He frowned. A frown I had become accustomed to.

 

“Hmmm. Something’s not quite right.”

 

Then he used the editing software on his Helper to soften the edges, adjust my smile and add filtered sunlight.

 

“There. You’re perfect,” he said.

 

My screens flickered for a second, revealing the me underneath.

 

But he didn’t notice; he was still looking at the photo.