I met Serah at a fern bar downtown. It was one of those devastatingly dark upscale dives, the dim recesses crammed with plastic plants, except for a few chameleon vines under grow lights in the window as a beacon to any pseudo-intellectual passing by looking for an oasis in the urban jungle. Serah was sitting at the bar, nursing a brightly colored pink mocktail, which matched her hair and lipstick. Her fingernails were long and black, as was her sequin trimmed synthetic outfit, and the head of the anaconda tattoo slithering out of her collar onto her neck. Her wrists were covered with translucent neon beads, and she wore two long strands of faux pearls around her neck.
I sat in the empty stool next to her, said “ciao bella”, and was surprised when she batted her false eyelashes at me and answered in an auto-tuned voice, “Hey fanboy, what planet are you from?”
“Are you using Bluetooth to get that reverb effect?” I asked.
“No, I’ve had my vocal cords surgically augmented.” It was kind of weird hearing her talk at first, because everything she said was in perfect pitch.
“Does your voice always sound like that, or can you turn it on and off?”
“I turn it off when I talk to my mother or some other straight, but mostly I leave it on. You should hear me sing karaoke.”
“I can’t wait,” I said, “and I know just the place.” I tapped my plastic and took her to Culture, the new bistro down the block that lab-grows all its own meat. “They’ve got a plant-based meat menu, too, if you’re a vegan.”
“No, I’m a Buddhist, but I love a good steak. This is perfect. And it’s Karaoke night!”
“I’ll put you on the performer list.” Needless to say, she won my heart with a rendition of “Imitation of Life” by R.E.M. and then when the crowd demanded an encore “Fake Smile” by Arianna Grande, perfectly copying the diva’s autotuned voice.
“You could be a star”, I told her, joining in the crowd’s standing O as she sashayed back to our table.
“I already am,” she informed me. “I thought you recognized me at the bar. Check out my YouTube channel.”
“Damn, girl! You’ve got more hits than the King of Mock, Conor Maynard! You must be raking it in!”
“Not nearly as much as you think. It’s an AI eat AI world out there. Every wormy night crawler on the web is constantly sucking up all my latest covers and every other ersatz artist’s and spitting them back out to my fans pretending to be me. People are so easily duped by counterfeit covers. They can’t tell the difference between real imitations and fake ones. Or even if they can they’re happy to pretend they don’t care. How are us honest imitators ever going to make a living? Fortunately, I’ve got other streams of income.”
“What else do you do?”
“I speculate in crypto. I’ve got a system that’s been working 90% of the time. I go on Kalshi and see what the odds are for Trump to do more than 240 Truth Social posts in a week. Whenever that’s the favorite bet crypto is almost guaranteed to go up. I have no idea why, but I guess there’s no rhyme or reason when it comes to imaginary currency.”
“Aren’t you worried about getting left holding the bag when the Ether market goes up in smoke?”
“No, I always keep my finger on the cyber button and cash out at the end of every day. Then I take my profits and invest in something real. Lately I’ve been buying shares of Zimmer Biomet. They’re the leading manufacturer of artificial knees and hips. And the longer all the old geezers like my parents keep breathing, the more likely they are to need spare parts. Another company that I’m betting on is AbbVie, who owns Botox, and does a booming business in breast implants and regenerative tissue for surgeries. Everyone I know is getting augmented, tightened, resurfaced, or remodeled. Why settle for what nature gave you when you can be any way you want? But to really make my portfolio jump I need to get outside investors. How’d you like to be my first?”
I was kind of stunned by her apparent honesty. “Damn, Serah, I want to believe everything you say, but I’ve been hurt so often before. How do I know if what you’re telling me is the real dope, or if it’s all an act and you’re just trying to flim-flam me?”
She looked at me with her huge paisley-shaped green eyes. “Only one way to know for sure. Come back to my place and let me share my virtual reality with you. I’ll fly you to the moon, or at least someplace very cold and barren. Once you see my alternate world you’ll never want to come back.”
I forced a smile, but I had other business to attend to. Anyway, her voice was starting to get on my nerves. “I’m sorry, Serah, but I’ve got a batch of cookies baking in my simulator, and if I don’t get them out soon they’re liable to take down the electric grid on the entire eastern seaboard. Then nobody would be able to hear any of your tracks. And we can’t let that happen, now, can we?” I waved goodbye and left her to bask in the fluorescent limelight of her ephemeral fame.
Read the October 2026 issue of Funny Times
