Family

The child kept fussing, but it was not hers to comfort. She just gave birth to it. She only had a few days with the baby before they took the child away to the community nursery where all infants went three days after birth. Pediatric Carers would take care of the infants until they could walk. Then they went to the toddler houses where they were cared for by “Preschool teachers” twenty-four hours a day. Children were not raised in families and no one had parents anymore, not since the revolution. By the time they were five years old, they lived in large dormitories and were taught by the Resident Teachers.

She knew the fate of her child before it was born. No one chose their life. In fact, she was chosen to be a birth mother for the young nation. This might have been the first child that was taken from her, but it would not be the last. She knew the way things used to be. She knew that families once existed, and children grew up knowing their parents, but it was a foreign concept to her. It was not her reality, and yet she dreamed of watching her child take its first steps, of nursing the child when it was sick, of cheering the child on at a soccer game. These were things that did not happen since the revolution, (at least, not for birth mothers) but she could not help but imagine what her life could have been just twenty years earlier.

As the child suckled at her breast she could feel its heartbeat. It was much faster than hers, but it was a part of her. Attached to her breast, she knew the child belonged to her not to the society. It was her role, just by giving birth to the child, to be a part of that child’s future. How could any society take away that right, but they had no rights. How could she maintain a relationship with her child? Would she spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to her children? She had to do something, but what? She was laying in a hospital bed with an infant at her breast. How could she run away with the child? Run away? It just popped into her mind. She could not control it. How dare she even think such a thing?

She stared down at the helpless child with full knowledge of the world she brought the child into. She could think no more. She decided she needed to act. She wrapped the child in a tight blanket, got dressed, crept out of her room without anyone seeing and managed to slip out of the hospital. There were rumors of rebels outside the city. She traveled in alleyways until the buildings spread farther apart. Finally, on the porch of a farmhouse a man and a woman were entertained by two giggling children. Family.

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