Aberration
On Fridays, I have dinner with mother. Just the two of us. In public, I am to call her Dr. Brady. When alone, I’m allowed to call her mother. I enjoy calling her mother. I like that my hair is black like hers, curly like hers, my eyes dark and big like hers, our skin the same shade of glowing brown. Sometimes she has gifts for me, mostly children’s exercise books on mathematics – her area of expertise. Our dinners, however, are mostly filled with talk on the importance of deromanticizing human emotions. Dr. Brady aims to make a strong intellectual out of me; I am not to award anyone any more affection than a smile and a handshake.
We can’t live with mother because father requested her signature on an agreement – back when they negotiated a relationship – stating he’d have full custody of any descendants. The document was witnessed and reviewed by both their solicitors and mother hasn’t managed to get a judge to grant her permission to break it. Mother calls it father’s ‘experiment.’
I would not like to live in her Dublin apartment though, where you need a machine to do everything for you and everything works on voice command. I much prefer the country, where we live with father. Mother says father wouldn’t have been able to afford a smart-penthouse in a hotel in Dublin city if he wanted to. She says we live in such an ancient house in Co. Meath because father inherited it.
“Curie, would you like me to cut your meat for you?” Mother asks. She often ends her questions with her red lips in the shape of a ‘u’ upside down.
“I am not a child. I am seven! And you’re not supposed to say ‘meat,’” I whisper. “That’s a bad word.”
Mother often says ‘meat’ when we’re eating syn-pro. Father says we’re not to call synthetic-protein “meat” because it refers to a barbaric time when people ate actual animal flesh. Father remembers when people still ate animals, even though there was already syn-pro. He was nine when eating animals became illegal altogether.
“I’m candid, Curie. Synthetic meat is still meat. Your father is the hypocritical, pseudo-animal lover.”
Dr. Brady carefully brings the fork to her mouth again; her nails the color of violets; on her left hand a diamond ring she promised will be mine when I finish my PhD. It is traditional that a woman should get a diamond ring from her mother upon finishing her Doctorate. Mother bought hers herself because her mother had passed before her graduation, and it is uncivilized for a woman to accept jewelry from a man – even her father. She told me it used to be a symbol of a woman’s imprisonment. Now, it is a symbol of our intellectual achievements.
Dr. Brady never speaks while chewing and she will just stare at you, perfectly composed, while you wait for her next sentence. She says that Dr. Devine, my father, disrespects animals’ rights in his research and that to take pride in compulsory synthetic-veganism – while scientific research still uses animals for testing purposes– is a romantic delusion. She regrets having ever admired his mind. Sometimes I don’t know how to answer mother, so I simply nod.
Mother and father are always blaming each other. Mother repeatedly demands her right to raise me and speaks of my right as a woman to be raised by an equal. Mother says she is a progressionist and a realist and father says her post-hyper-feminist ideas are sometimes inhuman. Their quarrels are predominantly futile. Mother uses words like ‘oppressor’ and ‘absent,’ father replies with ‘entitled’ and ‘apathetic.’ As much as I enjoy seeing her, it can be stressful trying to ensure mother and father don’t cross paths when she collects me for Feminist Fridays. As a result, no matter how wonderfully informative our dinners might be, I am always glad to get back home to my brother Joe.
Joe is my father’s son but not my mother’s. He is my best friend. We’re always together. I used to hug him secretly, but after mother moved out, father allowed me to do so openly. Joe’s favorite things are running, eating and exploring the land. So, whenever it isn’t raining heavily, we’re to be found outside. I must watch out for him as his skin seems permanently in a rash and too much sun may be harmful. I try to make him wear a hat but he hates them. His exceptionally light-blonde hair is too thin to protect his skull. Maybe he will look like father when he grows up. Father is very tall and blonde too. He’s skinny, his glasses are always crooked and he walks funny (as if one of his legs were slightly smaller than the other) – which he doesn’t like me to question. Joe walks funny too. Maybe it’s a man’s thing, I don’t know. Although I have seen a few males in the city, Joe and father are the only males I know, really.
Joe can’t speak yet but I always know exactly what he’s trying to say. I don’t like leaving him alone as nobody else understands him like I do. He cries whenever we have to be separated – which happens at bath time. Mother thinks it inappropriate for us to bathe together. Mother doesn’t really like Joe. She called Joe an aberration once and accused dad of having relations with Louise. Dad yelled at her and they fought. She warned him she’d expose the truth and moved out. Dad started locking his office at night after that.
Father’s office is the first room on the right from the porch. It’s filled with pictures and news articles of the day Joe and I were born. Our faces were so small and mucky and fat in those pictures. The stories of our miraculous birth always amused me. “The impossible babies!” “The first organic newborns in decades!” I enjoy being important. A reporter even came to the house to interview me once and took photographs of Joe and I playing.
Naturally, I am not allowed in father’s office – hence my fascination with it. Sometimes though, he works with his door slightly open and if he is facing the window instead of the door I get to silently stand there, observing it. Observing him. I am mesmerized by his presence; by the glint in his eyes when he works; by his long hands, forever busy typing or writing or turning pages of books. Nothing is more important to father than work, I know that – everybody knows that. Once, I overheard that his work was the reason mother left. And Louise, whoever she is.
Mother isn’t here anymore but there are plenty of women around for role models. There’s Greta, who is our cook and cleaner, a lean, fair-skinned woman with fierce eyes; there’s Nina, a shaven-head young oriental woman who looks after me, whatever that means – I don’t need her. I do, however, let her clean after me and bring me snacks. There is Dr. Musa, whose stunning dark face always reminds me of a sculpture because her gaze is ever so still. Dr. Musa is father’s boss at the university and occasionally comes to the house to attend meetings, but mostly works at the lab. There’s Dr. Patel, a woman who smells so good and is so curvy you’d be tempted to like her. Dr. Patel is my physician and I hate her though. She is the meanest person I know. And there’s Dr. McGrath, Joe’s physician, a red-haired woman who smiles so easily, I have always wished she could be my doctor instead.
Of all the women in my life, I admire Greta’s mind the most. Even though she doesn’t have a PhD. I never enquired about it, not to be rude, but I always notice the missing ring on her finger. Greta is funny, she’s always smiling and she’s smart. She doesn’t brag about it but she’s the cleverest of them all. She taught me things like how not to show fear to animals so that they won’t attack me. She knows all about our land too. Greta is strong because she enjoys working the land – which is the reason she agreed to work for father. Greta’s brown hair is always plaited (I have never seen its length), her almond-shaped green eyes always focused. Greta taught me that my favorite flowers, those tiny little ones that grow amongst the grass and weeds everywhere in spring are called buttercups; and that they are wild, like organic-life used to be. She knows everything about the most important things on the planet. And she knows a lot about the old world too.
Greta says there were a lot of terrible things in the old world, like animal-eating, constant wars and hunger – which syn-pro ended. But she says there were good things too, like women still carried their babies in their bellies and parents didn’t genetically modify their embryos (the thing that becomes a human).
“Dr. Devine is pro-organic-life, like me. This means he is fighting artificial selection and that is a great thing. But, mind you, he’s still a male.” She told me one day.
Greta always knew who was right and who was wrong. She was fair, too. Frequently she defended mother even though they clearly aren’t friends, solely allies. “Women were not always free; we fought for independence – which we only achieved through coalescing. And united we shall remain. A woman will never harm or turn her back on another woman. It is the way things are now. We’re all allies.” She told me before. She explained the organic-life movement to me and the reason why women should be the sole voice behind creation – be it organic or artificial – given that women are the basis of creation itself.
“A chromosome needs to be introduced to transform female into male; we’re all female to begin with. Women not only are the beginning of life, but only females have wombs to generate it in the first place. The whole concept of creation is intrinsically female. Women are both the chicken and the egg in the matters of creation.
We have also been able to form embryos without the need of male sperm for over a century now – which caused a rapid decline on the numbers of men in the planet. That’s why a lot of people are against your father’s research. His vision for the pro-organic life movement aims to reintroduce the need of male DNA in the matters of conception. And as a male, he doesn’t have the right to a voice on the matter in the first place. That’s strictly a female matter.
You see, in the old world, men not only thought they owned women, they acted on such beliefs. They set laws regulating our bodies and matters of pregnancy. There was even a time when a man could rape a woman he was married to without consequences. The feminist socialist movement changed that in the Great Feminist War of 2033. But we can’t take the new world for granted. We ought to make sure men are never given such powers again. We shouldn’t silence men altogether, we should read their research, but we certainly ought to be careful,” Greta said.
Dr. Brady often says that Joe and I are part of Dr. Devine’s research. Father denies it. He ensured me that our doctor appointments are simply to prove to the society that opposes him how healthy we are. We have monthly doctor appointments and Joe and I are always separated then. I don’t like Dr. Patel, but she is a good friend of mother, so I am forced to be polite to her. Her fat, dry hands always grab my arm too forcefully, her stethoscope is always too cold and she always refers to me as the ‘miracle child’ with a disgusted look on her face whenever we are alone in the room. Being reminded of my appointment with Dr. Patel today made everything worse. It has been raining outside for days now and Joe and I have grown impatient. He doesn’t like watching a screen or hearing stories; he mostly likes doing things. But there is nothing to do. Joe screamed and cried when Nina took him away so that I could go to my appointment.
When I walked into my room, Dr. Patel’s sinister black eyes conveyed her own annoyance. She told me that it would be quick but that she needed a blood sample from me. I told her that my bother Joe’s physician was much nicer and that I loved her and demanded to be seen by her instead. I used the word ‘love’ to antagonize her.
“Dr. McGrath? You know that woman doesn’t have a PhD, right? And, ‘love’? Really?”
I had no arguments to support my premise – I know she probably thinks I have an oppressed, small mind... but I know who I am! I simply stared at her. Defiant.
“Do you see any resemblance between yourself and Joe? Romanticizing relationships or nature lessens the value of intellect. Women fought romanticism and hyper-sexualization in order to make the mind our sole valuable, girl.”
I will never forget her laughter. It was loud, satisfied. Mother taught me that the very idea of love was invented to repress and control women centuries before our time. And father shouldn’t allow me to overlook my intellect and sentimentalize relationships either between humans or between humans and nature. That’s why most educated people don’t have siblings – or keep domesticated animals as pets – Dr. Brady told me.
Greta made herself known in the room by clearing her throat. She didn’t like Dr. Patel either. I could tell. Greta was carrying a tray of tea for her and they stared at each other for the longest time. Dr. Patel nodded, then Greta nodded and left the room.
I don’t like politeness because you never know what people really mean.
I am not stupid. I know Joe is different; he’s male after all. But I also know that we came into this world together and that I truly admire his mind. I wasn’t about to give Dr. Patel the satisfaction of knowing she’d disturbed my mental faculties, so I remained silent until she left.
When I came into the kitchen with Joe, father and Greta stopped talking. I knew they were discussing me. Greta offered me cake but I refused. I am seven after all. I want to be included in their secret conversations about me.
I want to show them I am grown-up so I walk closer to father and casually enquire as to why Dr. Patel asked me if there is any resemblance between Joe and I. I am not sure what resemblance is but I can tell it’s important. The prefix ‘re’ implies repetition, that something was done again and again. What I am not sure is what semblance is. Semblance… Is there any semblance between Joe and I? Father’s eyes move from Joe’s to mine.
Father invited me into his office. He had never invited me into his office before. I have a meeting with father. I am a scientist now. Finally!
I try to hold on to a serious face as we walk down the corridor. He enters the office first – his hips moving in that strange way – and sits in his crimson leather chair. I walk in slowly, looking at the room through a different perspective now – as a scientist who has a meeting here. I sit in front of father (or should I call him Dr. Devine?) and wait for the meeting to begin. The dark wooden table top is taller than I would have liked it to be but I look up, determined not to let it intimidate me. Joe – who had climbed into the chair next to mine – jumps out and walks around the room, inspecting it for the first time.
Dr. Devine clears his throat and looks at me smiling – which rarely happens. I smile too, thinking that this is how scientific meetings start. He opens his mouth to speak but then closes it again and once more clears his throat. Maybe I’m missing something? I clear my throat too in case it’s a signal.
“You know the story of your birth. However, perhaps you don’t understand what preceded it.”
“I am the miracle child. Well, we are the miracle children, Joe and I.”
“You and Joseph are both scientific marvels. I would not use the word miracle... but that’s past the point”
Dr. Devine asks me if I understand the difference between Joe and myself. Of course, I do. I take a deep breath and remind myself to keep my speech factual. “One: Joe is much shorter; Two: Joe is male; Three: I am smarter – even though Joe isn’t stupid; Four: Joe is different. But different is good, right?”
“Yes, different is good,” Dr. Devine assures me.
And mother always says men are different from women anyway – not as intelligent. We need to be patient with them. Although not too patient, she would add. Joe is entirely disinterested in our conversation and stares out of the window.
“Do you know what ‘aberration’ means? And do you know why your mother called Joe that?”
It means a bad word, I know that much. Dr. Devine explains that mother meant that Joe is a biological and social mistake. He explains that for nearly a century now most women chose not to gestate their offspring inside their bodies. It is seen as more efficient for babies to be made in vitro and grown in a synthetic womb in a vat, which gives women more time, freedom and control over their bodies. As a post-hyper-feminist, mother believes in desentimentalizing mother and child relationships and refuted my father’s supplications to have organic children.
Defeated, Dr. Devine came up with an idea. A way to gestate organic children without having to oppress a woman’s body. He then began his research on human gestation in animal wombs; so that life could grow in a warm, love-filled environment – as it used to be.
Mother says ‘love’ is a bad word.
“The thing called love is nothing more than the romanticising and exaggerating of sentiments between people. It is dangerous. It was a method used to manipulate individuals – especially women – for centuries. Only the admiration of another’s mind should be important in human relationships. When that is over, one should leave. Nothing should bind you to a weak mind.” I remind father. Adults are always saying bad words like ‘meat’ and ‘love.’
“What I am trying to say is that you and Joe are marvels not only because you are the first babies born of an animal womb. A porcine womb, in fact...” Dr. Devine pronounced those last words very slowly: ‘POR-CINE WOMB.’
I know I should have a big reaction because of the way he said it, but I don’t know what the reaction should be. He continues: “And whereas you are the product of mine and your mother’s DNA... Joe was accidently conceived when the porcine host, Louise, already pregnant with you, ran away and was... fertilised by another pig. It shouldn’t have happened by any means. Nobody ever dreamed of human and animal sharing the same womb, simultaneously. You are not only a cornerstone to the scientific community but to the organic-life movement too. Of course, your mother never believed that it wasn’t intentional. She accused me of sentimentalising Louise’s role, as the porcine host, and of anthropomorphizing Joseph. She will never forgive me for diminishing your intellect by raising human and swine together. Brother and sister, in a loving friendship.”
“But Joe and I are the same.”
“You’re from different species, darling. You are a Homosapien. Joseph is a Sus Scrofa Domesticus.” Dr. Devine says, smiling again.
“Joe and I are the same; that’s a fact. Scientific facts can’t be altered. Stop immediately with such ignorant speculations!” I yell.
How dare he? How dare he try to enflame my emotions by smiling and calling me darling? Does he really think he’s going to fog my intellect? How dare he say that Joe is a swine? I call Joe, who is now sniffing father’s cabinet, and we run out of his office.
I take my bag and with Joe running beside me, I leave through the back door. We will run away from both father and mother. I hope those pseudo-scientists become highly discredited and fall into oblivion. Both their pro-artificial-life and organic-life philosophies know nothing about real life, the real thing happening outside their cerebral matter.
I am a true woman though; I am strong and I shall not be oppressed or misguided. Joe and I shall develop our own science; one that allows us to enjoy life and one another.
Joe and I stop to rest under a yew tree. I hug him tight and as I run my fingers through his pink skin and feel the sparse blonde hairs on his body, I wonder… has Joe been a pig this whole time?
We can’t live with mother because father requested her signature on an agreement – back when they negotiated a relationship – stating he’d have full custody of any descendants. The document was witnessed and reviewed by both their solicitors and mother hasn’t managed to get a judge to grant her permission to break it. Mother calls it father’s ‘experiment.’
I would not like to live in her Dublin apartment though, where you need a machine to do everything for you and everything works on voice command. I much prefer the country, where we live with father. Mother says father wouldn’t have been able to afford a smart-penthouse in a hotel in Dublin city if he wanted to. She says we live in such an ancient house in Co. Meath because father inherited it.
“Curie, would you like me to cut your meat for you?” Mother asks. She often ends her questions with her red lips in the shape of a ‘u’ upside down.
“I am not a child. I am seven! And you’re not supposed to say ‘meat,’” I whisper. “That’s a bad word.”
Mother often says ‘meat’ when we’re eating syn-pro. Father says we’re not to call synthetic-protein “meat” because it refers to a barbaric time when people ate actual animal flesh. Father remembers when people still ate animals, even though there was already syn-pro. He was nine when eating animals became illegal altogether.
“I’m candid, Curie. Synthetic meat is still meat. Your father is the hypocritical, pseudo-animal lover.”
Dr. Brady carefully brings the fork to her mouth again; her nails the color of violets; on her left hand a diamond ring she promised will be mine when I finish my PhD. It is traditional that a woman should get a diamond ring from her mother upon finishing her Doctorate. Mother bought hers herself because her mother had passed before her graduation, and it is uncivilized for a woman to accept jewelry from a man – even her father. She told me it used to be a symbol of a woman’s imprisonment. Now, it is a symbol of our intellectual achievements.
Dr. Brady never speaks while chewing and she will just stare at you, perfectly composed, while you wait for her next sentence. She says that Dr. Devine, my father, disrespects animals’ rights in his research and that to take pride in compulsory synthetic-veganism – while scientific research still uses animals for testing purposes– is a romantic delusion. She regrets having ever admired his mind. Sometimes I don’t know how to answer mother, so I simply nod.
Mother and father are always blaming each other. Mother repeatedly demands her right to raise me and speaks of my right as a woman to be raised by an equal. Mother says she is a progressionist and a realist and father says her post-hyper-feminist ideas are sometimes inhuman. Their quarrels are predominantly futile. Mother uses words like ‘oppressor’ and ‘absent,’ father replies with ‘entitled’ and ‘apathetic.’ As much as I enjoy seeing her, it can be stressful trying to ensure mother and father don’t cross paths when she collects me for Feminist Fridays. As a result, no matter how wonderfully informative our dinners might be, I am always glad to get back home to my brother Joe.
Joe is my father’s son but not my mother’s. He is my best friend. We’re always together. I used to hug him secretly, but after mother moved out, father allowed me to do so openly. Joe’s favorite things are running, eating and exploring the land. So, whenever it isn’t raining heavily, we’re to be found outside. I must watch out for him as his skin seems permanently in a rash and too much sun may be harmful. I try to make him wear a hat but he hates them. His exceptionally light-blonde hair is too thin to protect his skull. Maybe he will look like father when he grows up. Father is very tall and blonde too. He’s skinny, his glasses are always crooked and he walks funny (as if one of his legs were slightly smaller than the other) – which he doesn’t like me to question. Joe walks funny too. Maybe it’s a man’s thing, I don’t know. Although I have seen a few males in the city, Joe and father are the only males I know, really.
Joe can’t speak yet but I always know exactly what he’s trying to say. I don’t like leaving him alone as nobody else understands him like I do. He cries whenever we have to be separated – which happens at bath time. Mother thinks it inappropriate for us to bathe together. Mother doesn’t really like Joe. She called Joe an aberration once and accused dad of having relations with Louise. Dad yelled at her and they fought. She warned him she’d expose the truth and moved out. Dad started locking his office at night after that.
Father’s office is the first room on the right from the porch. It’s filled with pictures and news articles of the day Joe and I were born. Our faces were so small and mucky and fat in those pictures. The stories of our miraculous birth always amused me. “The impossible babies!” “The first organic newborns in decades!” I enjoy being important. A reporter even came to the house to interview me once and took photographs of Joe and I playing.
Naturally, I am not allowed in father’s office – hence my fascination with it. Sometimes though, he works with his door slightly open and if he is facing the window instead of the door I get to silently stand there, observing it. Observing him. I am mesmerized by his presence; by the glint in his eyes when he works; by his long hands, forever busy typing or writing or turning pages of books. Nothing is more important to father than work, I know that – everybody knows that. Once, I overheard that his work was the reason mother left. And Louise, whoever she is.
Mother isn’t here anymore but there are plenty of women around for role models. There’s Greta, who is our cook and cleaner, a lean, fair-skinned woman with fierce eyes; there’s Nina, a shaven-head young oriental woman who looks after me, whatever that means – I don’t need her. I do, however, let her clean after me and bring me snacks. There is Dr. Musa, whose stunning dark face always reminds me of a sculpture because her gaze is ever so still. Dr. Musa is father’s boss at the university and occasionally comes to the house to attend meetings, but mostly works at the lab. There’s Dr. Patel, a woman who smells so good and is so curvy you’d be tempted to like her. Dr. Patel is my physician and I hate her though. She is the meanest person I know. And there’s Dr. McGrath, Joe’s physician, a red-haired woman who smiles so easily, I have always wished she could be my doctor instead.
Of all the women in my life, I admire Greta’s mind the most. Even though she doesn’t have a PhD. I never enquired about it, not to be rude, but I always notice the missing ring on her finger. Greta is funny, she’s always smiling and she’s smart. She doesn’t brag about it but she’s the cleverest of them all. She taught me things like how not to show fear to animals so that they won’t attack me. She knows all about our land too. Greta is strong because she enjoys working the land – which is the reason she agreed to work for father. Greta’s brown hair is always plaited (I have never seen its length), her almond-shaped green eyes always focused. Greta taught me that my favorite flowers, those tiny little ones that grow amongst the grass and weeds everywhere in spring are called buttercups; and that they are wild, like organic-life used to be. She knows everything about the most important things on the planet. And she knows a lot about the old world too.
Greta says there were a lot of terrible things in the old world, like animal-eating, constant wars and hunger – which syn-pro ended. But she says there were good things too, like women still carried their babies in their bellies and parents didn’t genetically modify their embryos (the thing that becomes a human).
“Dr. Devine is pro-organic-life, like me. This means he is fighting artificial selection and that is a great thing. But, mind you, he’s still a male.” She told me one day.
Greta always knew who was right and who was wrong. She was fair, too. Frequently she defended mother even though they clearly aren’t friends, solely allies. “Women were not always free; we fought for independence – which we only achieved through coalescing. And united we shall remain. A woman will never harm or turn her back on another woman. It is the way things are now. We’re all allies.” She told me before. She explained the organic-life movement to me and the reason why women should be the sole voice behind creation – be it organic or artificial – given that women are the basis of creation itself.
“A chromosome needs to be introduced to transform female into male; we’re all female to begin with. Women not only are the beginning of life, but only females have wombs to generate it in the first place. The whole concept of creation is intrinsically female. Women are both the chicken and the egg in the matters of creation.
We have also been able to form embryos without the need of male sperm for over a century now – which caused a rapid decline on the numbers of men in the planet. That’s why a lot of people are against your father’s research. His vision for the pro-organic life movement aims to reintroduce the need of male DNA in the matters of conception. And as a male, he doesn’t have the right to a voice on the matter in the first place. That’s strictly a female matter.
You see, in the old world, men not only thought they owned women, they acted on such beliefs. They set laws regulating our bodies and matters of pregnancy. There was even a time when a man could rape a woman he was married to without consequences. The feminist socialist movement changed that in the Great Feminist War of 2033. But we can’t take the new world for granted. We ought to make sure men are never given such powers again. We shouldn’t silence men altogether, we should read their research, but we certainly ought to be careful,” Greta said.
Dr. Brady often says that Joe and I are part of Dr. Devine’s research. Father denies it. He ensured me that our doctor appointments are simply to prove to the society that opposes him how healthy we are. We have monthly doctor appointments and Joe and I are always separated then. I don’t like Dr. Patel, but she is a good friend of mother, so I am forced to be polite to her. Her fat, dry hands always grab my arm too forcefully, her stethoscope is always too cold and she always refers to me as the ‘miracle child’ with a disgusted look on her face whenever we are alone in the room. Being reminded of my appointment with Dr. Patel today made everything worse. It has been raining outside for days now and Joe and I have grown impatient. He doesn’t like watching a screen or hearing stories; he mostly likes doing things. But there is nothing to do. Joe screamed and cried when Nina took him away so that I could go to my appointment.
When I walked into my room, Dr. Patel’s sinister black eyes conveyed her own annoyance. She told me that it would be quick but that she needed a blood sample from me. I told her that my bother Joe’s physician was much nicer and that I loved her and demanded to be seen by her instead. I used the word ‘love’ to antagonize her.
“Dr. McGrath? You know that woman doesn’t have a PhD, right? And, ‘love’? Really?”
I had no arguments to support my premise – I know she probably thinks I have an oppressed, small mind... but I know who I am! I simply stared at her. Defiant.
“Do you see any resemblance between yourself and Joe? Romanticizing relationships or nature lessens the value of intellect. Women fought romanticism and hyper-sexualization in order to make the mind our sole valuable, girl.”
I will never forget her laughter. It was loud, satisfied. Mother taught me that the very idea of love was invented to repress and control women centuries before our time. And father shouldn’t allow me to overlook my intellect and sentimentalize relationships either between humans or between humans and nature. That’s why most educated people don’t have siblings – or keep domesticated animals as pets – Dr. Brady told me.
Greta made herself known in the room by clearing her throat. She didn’t like Dr. Patel either. I could tell. Greta was carrying a tray of tea for her and they stared at each other for the longest time. Dr. Patel nodded, then Greta nodded and left the room.
I don’t like politeness because you never know what people really mean.
I am not stupid. I know Joe is different; he’s male after all. But I also know that we came into this world together and that I truly admire his mind. I wasn’t about to give Dr. Patel the satisfaction of knowing she’d disturbed my mental faculties, so I remained silent until she left.
When I came into the kitchen with Joe, father and Greta stopped talking. I knew they were discussing me. Greta offered me cake but I refused. I am seven after all. I want to be included in their secret conversations about me.
I want to show them I am grown-up so I walk closer to father and casually enquire as to why Dr. Patel asked me if there is any resemblance between Joe and I. I am not sure what resemblance is but I can tell it’s important. The prefix ‘re’ implies repetition, that something was done again and again. What I am not sure is what semblance is. Semblance… Is there any semblance between Joe and I? Father’s eyes move from Joe’s to mine.
Father invited me into his office. He had never invited me into his office before. I have a meeting with father. I am a scientist now. Finally!
I try to hold on to a serious face as we walk down the corridor. He enters the office first – his hips moving in that strange way – and sits in his crimson leather chair. I walk in slowly, looking at the room through a different perspective now – as a scientist who has a meeting here. I sit in front of father (or should I call him Dr. Devine?) and wait for the meeting to begin. The dark wooden table top is taller than I would have liked it to be but I look up, determined not to let it intimidate me. Joe – who had climbed into the chair next to mine – jumps out and walks around the room, inspecting it for the first time.
Dr. Devine clears his throat and looks at me smiling – which rarely happens. I smile too, thinking that this is how scientific meetings start. He opens his mouth to speak but then closes it again and once more clears his throat. Maybe I’m missing something? I clear my throat too in case it’s a signal.
“You know the story of your birth. However, perhaps you don’t understand what preceded it.”
“I am the miracle child. Well, we are the miracle children, Joe and I.”
“You and Joseph are both scientific marvels. I would not use the word miracle... but that’s past the point”
Dr. Devine asks me if I understand the difference between Joe and myself. Of course, I do. I take a deep breath and remind myself to keep my speech factual. “One: Joe is much shorter; Two: Joe is male; Three: I am smarter – even though Joe isn’t stupid; Four: Joe is different. But different is good, right?”
“Yes, different is good,” Dr. Devine assures me.
And mother always says men are different from women anyway – not as intelligent. We need to be patient with them. Although not too patient, she would add. Joe is entirely disinterested in our conversation and stares out of the window.
“Do you know what ‘aberration’ means? And do you know why your mother called Joe that?”
It means a bad word, I know that much. Dr. Devine explains that mother meant that Joe is a biological and social mistake. He explains that for nearly a century now most women chose not to gestate their offspring inside their bodies. It is seen as more efficient for babies to be made in vitro and grown in a synthetic womb in a vat, which gives women more time, freedom and control over their bodies. As a post-hyper-feminist, mother believes in desentimentalizing mother and child relationships and refuted my father’s supplications to have organic children.
Defeated, Dr. Devine came up with an idea. A way to gestate organic children without having to oppress a woman’s body. He then began his research on human gestation in animal wombs; so that life could grow in a warm, love-filled environment – as it used to be.
Mother says ‘love’ is a bad word.
“The thing called love is nothing more than the romanticising and exaggerating of sentiments between people. It is dangerous. It was a method used to manipulate individuals – especially women – for centuries. Only the admiration of another’s mind should be important in human relationships. When that is over, one should leave. Nothing should bind you to a weak mind.” I remind father. Adults are always saying bad words like ‘meat’ and ‘love.’
“What I am trying to say is that you and Joe are marvels not only because you are the first babies born of an animal womb. A porcine womb, in fact...” Dr. Devine pronounced those last words very slowly: ‘POR-CINE WOMB.’
I know I should have a big reaction because of the way he said it, but I don’t know what the reaction should be. He continues: “And whereas you are the product of mine and your mother’s DNA... Joe was accidently conceived when the porcine host, Louise, already pregnant with you, ran away and was... fertilised by another pig. It shouldn’t have happened by any means. Nobody ever dreamed of human and animal sharing the same womb, simultaneously. You are not only a cornerstone to the scientific community but to the organic-life movement too. Of course, your mother never believed that it wasn’t intentional. She accused me of sentimentalising Louise’s role, as the porcine host, and of anthropomorphizing Joseph. She will never forgive me for diminishing your intellect by raising human and swine together. Brother and sister, in a loving friendship.”
“But Joe and I are the same.”
“You’re from different species, darling. You are a Homosapien. Joseph is a Sus Scrofa Domesticus.” Dr. Devine says, smiling again.
“Joe and I are the same; that’s a fact. Scientific facts can’t be altered. Stop immediately with such ignorant speculations!” I yell.
How dare he? How dare he try to enflame my emotions by smiling and calling me darling? Does he really think he’s going to fog my intellect? How dare he say that Joe is a swine? I call Joe, who is now sniffing father’s cabinet, and we run out of his office.
I take my bag and with Joe running beside me, I leave through the back door. We will run away from both father and mother. I hope those pseudo-scientists become highly discredited and fall into oblivion. Both their pro-artificial-life and organic-life philosophies know nothing about real life, the real thing happening outside their cerebral matter.
I am a true woman though; I am strong and I shall not be oppressed or misguided. Joe and I shall develop our own science; one that allows us to enjoy life and one another.
Joe and I stop to rest under a yew tree. I hug him tight and as I run my fingers through his pink skin and feel the sparse blonde hairs on his body, I wonder… has Joe been a pig this whole time?
M. M. Coelho is a Brazilian/Irish writer based in Dublin. She has written two short plays; Indonesia and Fatherhood, which were performed in Dublin. She also wrote a short film, Shells, which premiered at Indie Cork Film Festival. She is delighted that you are reading her story.
Art: Sleep in the Time of Daffodils, oil and acrylic on canvas, Rebecca Pyle