Tamina

Tamina loved walking through the city in the dead of night. After the cleaning crews wrapped up their last office tower, but before the early rising commuters made their way back into town, there was a small window of time where she could truly be alone. She’d walk along the sidewalks lost in thought, weaving around the skyscrapers and apartment buildings, businesses with the lights completely turned off, rarely seeing another soul. The only sound that reached her ears was the soft thud of her shoes hitting the pavement, occasionally drowned out by the far off hum of a solar panel inverter. Streetlights welcomed her into their soft glow every few hundred feet, and in between she’d look up and admire the vast sky of stars above her.

The stillness of the night was soothing after a bustling day full of people in a rush; a rush to get to work, a rush to get home, a rush to run errands. Having moved to the city later in life, it was often overwhelming for Tamina; but now with the streets empty, and the high speed rail cars standing vacant, the entire city felt like another world all her own. She felt completely at ease.

Tamina’s thoughts wandered to the history lessons and stories she had been told growing up. There had been a time, not terribly long ago, where a woman walking alone at this hour was unheard of. It was simply too dangerous - particularly this late, and in as large a city as this - to be out alone at night. There was too much risk of being harassed, mugged, or worse. Far worse. She shuddered at the idea, thankful she wasn’t part of such a primitive society.

Absentmindedly, Tamina’s hands wrapped around the heart shaped locket that hung around her neck. Though it tapped against her chest with each step she took, she was so accustomed to it being there that she often forgot about it entirely, despite having a nervous habit of rubbing it between her fingers when she was anxious. The locket was a family heirloom she cherished, gifted from mother to daughter through several generations. It had been a long time since she had last opened it and looked at the photos inside, but a wave of curiosity came over her suddenly as she reached the edge of the Cumberland River.

Tamina made her way to her favorite bench along the shore, where she often liked to sit and admire the reflection of the city lights and the moon on the water. She unclasped the necklace and gently pried it open, holding it gingerly in her hands. On the left was a young woman, with a slight build and dark brown hair, smiling softly at the camera. Her name was lost to time, but Tamina knew this was a distant relative of hers. Her mother had told her as much, though she didn’t need to; Tamina shared all the exact same features as the woman in the photo. If she didn’t know any better, she would have believed it was a picture of herself.

On the right side of the locket was a larger, more muscular figure, with a prominent jaw line and a thick layer of facial hair. A male. Tamina stared at the photo, both fascinated and a little perturbed. She had only ever seen them in photos, and even then not since history class from back in her school days. There hadn’t been a naturally born male in centuries, not since the Virus first emerged. It had plagued the entire globe, but only affected individuals with high enough levels of testosterone, killing them in a matter of days once contracted. It spread through the earth at a startling rate, leaving no time to prepare and no time to develop a cure. Nearly half of the world’s population was lost in a matter of months, leading to food and infrastructure crises that took the lives of countless more.

No one alive remembered the Virus or its aftereffects firsthand, and consequently no one alive had ever known a male. They were discussed in school, entire curriculum and textbooks dedicated to the history of males from before the Virus hit. As Tamina recalled, most of it was horrifying. Men had been responsible for wars, mass shootings, genocides...things that had not happened in the time since. She glanced down again at the photo in her hands. This man looked innocent enough to Tamina, with a wide toothy smile beaming back at her. She had a hard time believing he was anything like the horrible males they focused on in school; in fact, Tamina suspected that they were, on the whole, not being represented fairly in history lessons. It seemed improbable that in the thousands of years of human existence before the Virus, there were only enough “good” males to fill a single chapter of an entire textbook. The artists, peacemakers, and medical geniuses always felt like a footnote, with professors heavily focusing instead on all the monsters who had existed throughout history. She remembered asking as a young girl why that was, only to be scolded and reprimanded until she learned it was best to keep her mouth shut.

It never sat quite right with Tamina. Professors would spend weeks teaching about the horrors of man, but breeze right past equally atrocious actions taken by the surviving females. Often, it felt like a way to justify what happened after the pandemic, or at least serve as a distraction from it. After the initial wave of the virus, it took several years for the world to truly stabilize again. In that time, there was not a single successful vaccine trial, and yet a new variant of the Virus emerged that hit at an even lower testosterone level. The new major world leaders, now all female, took drastic measures to avoid any more collateral damage. Often these were implemented in secret, or simply forced upon the survivors; “temporary” martial law was common in larger countries to ensure compliance. Arguably the most controversial of these measures was the addition of estrogen to drinking water supplies. In high enough doses, the estrogen rendered an individual immune to the disease. Though largely successful, this operation was met with severe backlash across the globe. Most countries had opted to keep the sting a secret for several months, choosing to only disclose it once the numbers proved its success.

The influx of estrogen wrecked havoc on most individuals, but especially so in the few remaining naturally born and transgender males. Tamina shuddered to think of how it must have made those people feel - trapped in a body that no longer felt like their own, altered by chemicals without their consent. It always bothered her to know the governments of the world could implement such an invasive “cure”, especially without disclosing it first. Yes, it led to the eventual eradication of the Virus, but at what cost? The survivors were left with little choice but to drink the estrogen laced water. Some found ways to avoid it, by finding their own water sources or drinking only pre-packaged items; but after the initial deception it must have been difficult to believe nothing else was being altered. Others simply let themselves be taken by the Virus or dehydration to regain some amount of control over their bodies. Of course, in school they never delved deep into how these groups of people were affected; instead, the events were given a heroic spin. The new world leaders saved humanity by making difficult choices, and we would not be here at all if not for them. Or so they were told as children.

Though the Virus eventually died out without enough testosterone to sustain it, there were further negative effects from the “cure”. In order to keep up the already significantly reduced population, volunteers were artificially inseminated. But supplies were limited, and the high levels of estrogen in the remaining females made it difficult for many to conceive at all. Over time, it became clear this was not a sustainable option, and the scientific community was tasked to research a widely taboo practice: human cloning. It was hard for Tamina to imagine cloning as being controversial; for the past two hundred plus years, that was the only way people were born. At the time though, it had never been done before in humans, but it was eventually greenlit as the only viable option in a desperate attempt to keep humanity alive.

It took several decades for the population to really begin growing again, but cloning did prove to be a success. Over time, cities began to fill out, and there was enough workforce to bring back a level of “normality” that had not existed in quite some time. Though the world population was still just a fraction of what it was before the Virus, society eventually did thrive as it once had, with one exception: there were no longer any males at all.

Textbooks claimed that attempts to clone males were unsuccessful. There were different hypotheses as to why, though they were filled with contradictions and none seemed to make much sense. It was widely just accepted that like any other major evolutionary change, it was “survival of the fittest”, and human males just didn’t make the cut. Tamina often wondered though how much of that was true; so many scientific advancements had been made in the years since the Virus - a cure for all known cancers, clean and renewable energy sources, fixing the ozone...could they really not find a way to bring back males? Or were they simply not trying?

Tamina was snapped out of her thoughts by the first ray of light peeking out over a distant foothill. Soon the city would no longer be hers alone. She snapped the necklace shut and once more clasped it around her neck. She didn’t have all the answers, and she likely never would; but maybe she could just accept the way life was. After all, there was no war, no famine, just peaceful coexistence between countries. Humanity was thriving. Tamina turned back towards the city skyline once more, the buildings still encased by darkness of night. She began her trek back home before the streets began to fill once more. Yes, history had been riddled with monsters, both male and female; but at least now she was able to walk through the night alone.