|
June decided she didn’t want to have kids. She was driving and listening to a radio segment about having kids, and the guest was talking about global over-population, and poverty rates, and how conceiving a child could be the ultimate selfish act, since the baby does not choose to be born, since its existence is based entirely on the parents’ own desires to create copies of themselves and shape them as they see fit, to carry on their genes and their values, to project themselves further and further out into the universe. June read about the ways in which childbirth would destroy her body, stretching and tearing and warping every part she now considered beautiful, upsetting the balance of her chemicals and detuning her systems so that she would break down in countless tiny ways, so that her body would sag and melt. Her friends told her horror stories of how they never slept, how they never went out, how they gave up on fashion and reading and all their dreams of culture and world travel, and how they and their partners rarely had sex anymore, how the kids absorbed most of their romantic energy, turning them into practical creatures more like farmers than lovers or artists. Although they always ended their stories with “but it’s all worth it”, June could see the truth in their eyes, and she nodded quietly to herself with decisiveness and great resolve. Then on a summer afternoon at a park, a friend shoved a baby into June’s arms, and June looked down at the baby, and tilted her head, and said, “Awww...” and the world starved and burned for another thousand years.
|
