But all that feels like ancient history now. The last Total died twenty years ago. Since then, Total Care Centers have been repurposed to cater to victims of other diseases. Some have become apartment complexes. Others stand empty, their hivelike structures populated by flying squirrels and snakes. Teenagers use them to smoke and fuck in. Junkies shoot up there.

But in that period, the wealthy world was gripped with terror for a good few years. It’s hard to imagine the fear experienced by a woman who had used a Total Phone and then found out she was pregnant. Total Syndrome was very difficult to detect in utero, because a balloonlike sac developed around the baby’s head, in the shape of a normal head, with a yolk inside it that looked like a normal brain. Few mothers would abort a fetus on the off chance it was abnormal. Least of all my mother.

The day had just turned cloudy. Irritated, I pulled my sweatshirt over my damp bathing suit. I hated the cool air on my hot skin. The sea was now the color of lead; a breeze was picking up. I looked over at my mother. She was lying on her stomach, reading, oblivious to the change in temperature. I put my camera up to my eye, pointed it down at her, and tried to find a frame. Her short, white-blond hair was stringy from seawater; sand coated her back. I shifted the lens toward the sea and found my father trudging along the beach, ungainly, heavy, a very tall, stooped man, swaying from side to side as he placed each foot down, outside edge first, staring at the sand as though he had only just learned to walk. I thought he should be ashamed to be so naked. His wrinkled wet trunks clung to his hairless legs. I put down my camera.

My little mother sat up swiftly and opened the beach bag, rooting around. A silver tube of lipstick flashed in her hand as she applied a swift dash of red to her mouth without the aid of a mirror, a specialty of hers. This was her signal that a change was imminent. She always put on lipstick when a new thing was about to happen. I started gathering my things, getting ready to go back to the rental cottage.

I glanced at my father, who was lumbering back from his walk.

That was when I saw them, down the beach by the shore: a line of Totals, tied together, led by a big woman with bright red hair. Their spade-shaped heads swayed from side to side on their slender necks like heavy buds on stems. The red-haired Englishwoman was singing “Pop Goes the Weasel,” leading the Totals along the shoreline.

Half a pound of tuppenny rice,

Half a pound of treacle …