In a short piece of prose, dip into the consciousness of a family. rather than one or two distinct points of view, this fiction should allow us into the minds of a marriage with children—adult children or young children.

A family of five crammed into their tiny apartment in the Walled City Housing Complex: father, mother, two children, and the hungry ghost of their grandfather.

The evening has been auspiciously quiet. Mother’s form is visible through the serving window as she prepares dinner in the kitchen. Father reclines on the couching, reading the day’s flimsy while ignoring the two children lying on the ground watching holo-programs.

Suddenly, the room erupts in shrieks. The children instinctively cover their ears, then their noises when a foul odor permeates the room. It smells like that time the sewage pipes ruptured and management was too stingy to fix it.

“Quiet, grandfather,” Father snarls from his couch. How long would the old man go before wearing himself out? When the noise continues, Father folds the flimsy and rises from the seat that is his island of peace in the storm. He peeks through the serving window and says to his wife, without affection, “my love, do something about grandfather, would you?”

The look Mother gives him is withering. She wonders how she married such an idle man, present at work, but at home, as emotionally available as a Jiangshi. It is his grandfather that is doing the wailing. Hers have passed on and been reincarnated. Yet she expects him to be the one to fix this? She picks up the butcher knife and chops the scallions.

Father registers her contempt and hurries back to his island of safety. No sense in disturbing his quarrelsome wife. He would choose the shrieks over a nagging spouse any day. As the shrieks continue, he unfolds the flimsy and returns to his reading.

It is sister who acts.

She has spent the last three years observing her parents’ frozen war. She has learned to do many of the things that they often forget. She is only ten, but in many ways, she is the adult of the house. She leaves her elder brother, two years her junior, sitting on the carpet, and toggles the display on the family altar. Queuing up a dozen in-app purchases (digital bank notes, cyber-incense, food modules composed of zeros and ones), she checks out and applies the offerings to grandfather’s altar.

She wonders how a ghost can be satisfied by mere lines of code. yet offerings have been fake for thousands of years—no one can afford to burn real money, especially not in this economy—and yet the ghosts are satisfied.

Grandfather too is satisfied, at least for a time. The shrieks die down as his digital specter partakes in its offerings. Yet soon enough, the screams start up again, this time with an even stronger pitch.

At last, the youngest member of the family slams his hands through the carpet. The son rises to face his grandfather—or rather, great-grandfather. “Why can’t you be quiet?”

The ghost looks into the eyes of his great-grandson, shocked that the boy can see him. In all their years together, never once has the son acknowledged his presence.

“Mother and Father shower you with offerings, and yet I get nothing? They are too heartbroken to purchase even a steam-bun for me. Only sister remembers that there are two departed in this household.”

Grandfather shrinks away. The shadow of shame passes over his face. The desire to save face is an emotion that can transcend even the grave. Grandfather drifts away from the altar and his quiet.

In the blessed peace, the son gazes upon his family. They cannot see him, although his sister still watches his favorite shows on the holoprogram, so there’s that. Yet as he gazes upon his mother, he sees the woman brush a tear from her face. A quick motion, and then its gone, as she continues cooking their evening meal.