Fragments of a Hologram Rose

This week I read "Fragments of a Hologram Rose," which starts with Parker in his apartment having trouble sleeping. While reading the short story, it's clear he went through a rough breakup and uses sense-recordings, which are kinda like holograms. Parker surrounds himself with these holograms of his ex's memories to help him sleep. Already compared to our reality, we don't have sense-recordings or holograms to help reflect on our past. Another part of the reality in this story is that the U.S (or southern California) is in a dystopia, or maybe some kind of post-apocalyptic. Which is different from our reality too.

The effect this story had on the narrative and the reader was to make you feel lonely. Going through such a hard break-up in a rough, dystopian world, the only happiness Parker seemed to gain was from looking at the holograms and memories over and over again.