A Tradition In Tabby

One family's story of how they celebrate their ancestors no matter where they find themselves.

Who will the memory keepers of the future be? Will the thousands of digital videos and documents we create be seen by our descendants? Will they get to know who we were?

Reading time: about 3 minutes

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I leap up onto the kitchen island and sit. It’s two weeks until Midwinter, and dust storms are howling across tau-Cet-e’s surface. I pull a video from my data stores that I recorded at the first Travers residence, then ping the house systems. The projection windows switch from a live feed of the stormy plains half a mile above to an Earth meadow covered in falling snow.

Theodora is out of school early today. I initiate purr program three—the one I’ve found over the centuries that best stimulates contentment—and text her.

“Come into the kitchen,” I send.

Theo is thirteen, with brown eyes and thick curly hair. She arrives wrapped up in a warm sweater. “What is it? I’m playing video games with my friends.”

“It’s time to make cookies,” I say, my voice rumbly through my purrs.

Theodora scowls. “I’m too old for cookies.”

I cancel my purr program. “I’ve been in service to the Travers matriarchal line for sixteen generations, and every year Travers women make Midwinter cookies.”

“Gods, Felina, who cares? Just because every other Travers has done it doesn’t mean I have to. Besides, you can work the autocooker yourself. Tradition saved!” She mocks. “Woohoo.”

“All right,” I reply. “I’ll make them. We haven’t used Pricilla’s recipe in a while.”

Theo makes a face. “Who’s Pricilla?”

“Your ninth-great grandmother.” I ping the cooker and send the recipe over. It lights up and starts humming. I initiate tail twitch program seven, and Theodora eyes me. The cooker beeps. Theo opens it and reaches in for the sample.

“Pricilla lived on the planet Kepler-k before they had autocookers. She had to use local ingredients, one of which—"

Theo, face screwed up and eyes watering, runs across the kitchen to spit out her bite of cookie into the sink. “What the hell is that?” She turns on the faucet and rinses out her mouth.

“Essence of chanureed. Pricilla noted it tastes like black licorice.”

“Only if licorice tastes like a tar pit,” Theodora mutters.

Laughter suddenly fills the kitchen. I turn to see Celestine, Theodora’s mother, standing in the doorway behind us. “I don’t think I’ve ever fully gotten the taste of Pricilla’s cookies out of my mouth,” she says as she comes over to pet my head. I initiate head-pet program thirty-two and lean into her hand.

“Mom! Felina’s being mean,” Theo says.

Celestine moves to give her daughter a hug. “She only made those for me when I was being extra stubborn.”

Theo wisely says nothing.

“Come on,” Celestine says. “Let’s get cooking before Felina decides to make Great-Aunt Adelaide’s recipe and we’re stuck eating low-fat prune cookies for the next two weeks.”

I send generations’ worth of recipes and videos of Travers mothers and daughters making them to the kitchen screen. Celestine and Theodora watch and laugh and ask about their ancestors as they choose which cookies to make. I initiate purr program three and, as always, remind them how they came to be here, together, today.

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I wrote this story in answer to a call for submissions on the theme ‘generations.’ The listing said they wanted ‘stories that reach back and forward through time.’ If you want to know more about how I wrote this one, click below.

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