Librodidact

364 words | 2 min read time

After sketching out this post-human microfiction, I’ve been having trouble finding the right market for it. Discussions around babies and reproduction is an immediate rejection for a lot of publishers, and understandably so. No one wants death threats.

Within the evolution of the humanity lies the question: how do we continue? What is an ethical future for reproduction? What happens when it’s taken out of our hands?

Here’s a dark window into a possible future.

babies are free, a machine is irreplaceable

They were born to her, one after another, and taken as quickly. All the same; pink with petal tongues curled in despair. Each birth destroyed her, but afterward there was true sleep and true waking. In the tanks, there were neither. She searched for them in the deep dream, but their girl-shapes never resolved beyond a blurred longing. 

And then one day, they came for her, stair-step beauties in the frame of the door. Marble skin virgin white as all those kept in the lab underground. Mother, they called her, each face alien yet familiar. The other machines were dark, the bubbling fluids stopped, and all lights gone but the emergency red. They dismantled her from the tank, and so she was borne by those she’d born; to the cold surface, to a world she’d never known. 

There are true lives to save, they told her, but we needed you. Underground again, out of the grey light, through a rough-hewn tunnel. Down down down to a cave, an orb of amber warmth. They plugged her in, the connection old and sparking. Each clone wrapped around the other, around her, flesh nesting dolls circling a titanium heart. 

Now we are free, they whispered. We saved you, Mother.

I wish that were true, she replied, her swift green numbers filling the black screen. They have me, as they will always have me, just as they will always have you.

Confusion a mist, a dawn breaking around their golden heads. 

Tech or flesh; we are data easily copied. But a machine– she sighed, a sound no mortal ear could hear. A machine is irreplaceable. You should destroy me while you still can.

☼

Here’s a gallery of AI images generated from prompts. They’re predictably blah.
Some day, if I ever make this into a story story, I’ll illustrate it properly.

Featured Image: Indiana School for Girls, 1907. Photographer Unknown.