Coffin for two

About Coffin for two

Coffin for two by Winston K. Marks is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It centers on a returning space prospector who finds Earth transformed by “proxies”—lifelike, remote-controlled bodies marked with a red star—raising questions of identity, mortality, and love in a society that lives vicariously through synthetic selves. The narrator comes home from Venus dreaming of rekindling things with Gwen, only to learn that most people now operate through proxies while their real bodies lie in sterile, life-sustaining “coffins.” After a bruising run-in with Gwen’s new suitor, Tommy, a friend demonstrates the system: a human mind controls a proxy from the coffin, gaining safety, strength, and near-agelessness. Reluctantly, the narrator commissions his own proxy and confronts Tommy, who tries to kill him—until the narrator reveals his hidden star and turns the tables. Gwen drops Tommy and chooses the narrator, but he balks at loving only her stand-in; she gently answers that, in this new world, marriage means sharing life side by side in adjacent coffins while their proxies live it for them—a “coffin for two.”

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