February Strawberries

A man grieving his wife's death sees someone resembling a deceased acquaintance and learns that clandestine practitioners claim to restore the dead through computational reconstruction from fragments. Driven by grief and recent release from psychiatric care, he seeks out a practitioner despite legal, religious, and social barriers, encountering a doctor who asserts an infallible mathematical method and insists on ritual preparations before attempting resurrection. The story examines the social implications, black-market secrecy, and personal desperation surrounding a technology that challenges death, exploring ethical, legal, and emotional consequences as the protagonist confronts the possibility of recovering his lost partner.