A Single Birth for a Thousand Deaths

Bloom is so often harsh toward me, but I sensed the moment I met him that he needed help. He was spiraling quickly enough to be noticed and rejected by a community with no future. My help was probably not what he needed, specifically, but his endless consumption of dark liquor, and his impatience for thoughts produced by any mind other than his own, did not leave him with an especially large social circle, or any at all, as far as I could tell. As I repeatedly refilled his glass and slid it across the bar, he spoke of his life’s mission. His claims, if taken at face value, would leave a person with the assumption that, until recently, all of humanity was depending upon him to save us. Though, as far as I could tell, this bipedal group of self-righteous monsters stepped off of the cliff’s edge a very long time ago.

At first, I thought he simply needed someone to listen to him ramble, so I listened. Sometimes, simply being heard can make all the difference. I listened all night long for many nights. He repeatedly told his story, with varying details, but the same central plot. There was once a girl in our community who could save us all, but she had died. He spent years looking for her, only to be informed by her mother that she had been lost during the war.

I suppose this town is still technically considered a war zone, but I am not personally aware of anywhere that has not been devastated the same way. It doesn’t strike me as especially unfair, considering that we are responsible for the fact that the world sees one live birth for every thousand deaths. That ratio may be worse now, but I gave up on hearing of any improvement long ago.

When I was a child, I often heard my parents, who were somewhat mismatched with their generation, reminiscent of a world before the first computer, spit venom at the television as commercial produce was exhibited. Simple 60 second clips, shown between streaming shows, presented a newly developed way to edit seeds as the cure for world hunger. They never flinched at political speeches or music videos, even as the latter delved deeper into what was most certainly the underbelly of society during their upbringing, but those oranges and tomatoes disgusted them like nothing else.

Domnicorp had been around for decades at that point, regularly spitting out products that made life easier for those who could afford them. They had long risen above their competitors when it came to anti-aging tablets and other elective medical products. However, their switch to genetically modified produce changed everything. It was cheaper to buy and produce than any crop had ever been, it grew incredibly fast, it tasted natural, and they had well-respected scientists backing its safety in both the media, and academia.

For a few years, it really did look as though we were on the short path to the eradication of world hunger. Domnicorp donated billions of seeds to underdeveloped countries and, seemingly overnight, people all over the world had access to nutrition like they hadn’t seen in generations. Many advancements were accomplished in the field of genetically modified food before Domnicorp dipped their toes in the water, and the world had already seen safety and benefit in the concept. Because of this, very few people who wielded any social power pushed back against them.

My parents were priced right out of the market. They were the third generation, on my mother’s side, to run our family farm. They had lived off of the income earned selling produce and animal products since the first autumn that the keys were placed in my mother’s hand. I remember believing that their anger at Domnicorp’s product was reasonable, but selfish. Wouldn’t most of us adapt our livelihood if it meant that starving children all over the world could have food in their stomachs?

I was also deeply fascinated by how much science could do to change the world. My best friend growing up, Beth, gave me access to not only every scientific textbook I could ever wish to see, but also her father, who was one of the scientists who developed the methods used to produce seeds for Domnicorp. I treated dinners with her family like I was auditing a class. There was a lot of tension between my parents and myself over the topic, and I spent every second I possibly could over at Beth’s. We would play in her yard and build castles out of paper during the day, and then I would wait for her to fall asleep, sneak into her father’s office, and read his textbooks until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

By the time I graduated high school, it became glaringly obvious how right my parents had been about the magic food. For years, the birth rate had been falling. It was more significant in some countries than others, but everybody on earth felt the impact in one way or another. Slowly, ears started to perk up to the claims of fringe scientists, who had been screaming warnings about the long-term effects of the food through their blogs and self-published videos since the release of the first Domnicorp tomato plant. As their voices grew louder, our government released statements with promises that the food Domnicorp had created could not be implicated in the worldwide fertility crisis. They went so far as to blame pollution, but not ours. They pointed the finger at countries on the other side of the planet with much denser populations. Those countries’ governments funded various investigations into Domnicorp’s products, and concluded that the fertility issues were not only their fault, but also likely purposefully caused. There was something in the genetic code that did not benefit the product in any way, and could not be believed to be included by mistake.

As the information spread, there was public outrage all over the world. At that point, most people had no choice but to eat food grown from Domnicorp seeds or starve. By then, it was well-known that our government was tightly wound up in Domnicorp, and the rest of the world called for the two of them to do something to reverse the damage they had done. It would have bankrupted both our country and Domnicorp to recall and replace most of the food on earth, so they dug their heels in. There were whispers of threats of war for months, and then bombs started falling. We had allies who assisted us in retaliation, and eventually everything spiraled into another world war. We were ultimately left in shambles, and all there was to eat or grow was food that has been thoroughly proven to cause infertility. There were no longer public schools, emergency services or publicly funded resources. However, we had semi-rebuilt our ravaged communities in many places based on trade. There was no longer hope that the government or Domnicorp would do what needed to be done, because nobody had heard from either in over a year.

“You remember the dead girl, don’t you?” Bloom inquired, leaning on his right elbow.

“I think you may have mentioned her once or twice.” I replied.

“I brought this with me this time.” He said, revealing a blackened, heart-shaped locket from the front, chest pocket of his well-worn jacket.

He handed it to me, but did not let go of the chain it was attached to.

“That’s her.” he tapped the front of the locket with his middle finger, “All I ever needed was her blood, but draining her now would be worthless, even if I knew where she was.”

I opened it, with great difficulty, to find that the inside was pristine and silver. The familiar face looking back at me from the tiny photograph almost startled me, and Bloom recognized it in my expression.

“What?” He asked. He was drunk, but not quite on the down slope, so to speak, yet that night.

I didn’t respond for a moment. This was the face of my childhood companion, whose death I had apparently been informed of, without even realizing it, dozens of times over, through the drunken ramblings of a barfly. I was abruptly engulfed in guilt and grief.

“What was her name?” I asked him.

“Beth.”

Beth. My Beth. The photo was identical to one I once had a copy of in a fourth grade class picture. His callous talk of her decaying body juxtaposed with the smiling face of my nine-year-old best friend nauseated me, and I had to walk away from him.

I sat outside for a moment, overwhelmed. At this point, the guilt far overshadowed the grief. To think that Beth had died and I hadn’t so much as offered her mother a casserole or a bouquet of flowers. Or, if her death had occurred after the government fell, when things changed so completely, at least offered acknowledgement and condolences.

Ben, the other half of our makeshift staff for the night, poked his head out the back door.

“Bloom is looking for you.”

“I need to go, Ben, I will make it up to you.”

“You better.”, he replied, with a warm smile.

I walked down the road, simply out of desire to put distance between myself and Bloom. As the light from the fires outside the decrepit building were replaced with the night, the gnawing guilt in the pit of my stomach intensified. I started to wonder if Beth’s mother still lived in their home, or if she had been driven out by the carnage like so many others.

How could Bloom have found her, if she didn’t live in the same place as she did in the old days? He had once viciously slurred to me about the dead girl’s “shrew of a mother”, and her refusal to allow him to ask any questions.

I took the long walk, in the dark, to my old second-home. As I stepped onto the street, which I had walked along thousands of times in the sunshine, it was jarring to see it ravaged the way it was, especially in the dark. It looked like everything else I knew, only I had not seen it since before everything fell apart. My eyes burned and tears started to accumulate. I couldn’t tell if it was for the memory of my old life, or for the memory of Beth.

Dim, familiar, flickering lights were betrayed by some of the neighbors’ windows. People were still living there.

I made my way up the cracked driveway of 1022 Oswald avenue, and I saw no evidence of flickering lights within the decomposing home. I felt both disappointment and relief.

I knocked on the door, and received no answer. I knocked harder, cupped my hands around my mouth, and yelled into a broken window off of the porch.

“Mrs. Russo? It’s Lucy!”

For the first time, I registered evidence of life. Careful footsteps made their way toward me from inside. The front door opened just slightly, the chain of the lock pulled taut between the frame and the door. Tired brown eyes peered out into the darkness, and met mine.

“Oh, god!” Mrs. Russo exclaimed, slamming the door closed again.

I heard frantic manipulation of metal against wood, and then the door opened so quickly that it slammed against the wall. She pulled me into a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry about Beth. I had no idea.” I cried into her shoulder.

She held me by my shoulders, at arm's length, to get a decent look at my face in the dark.

“What are you talking about?”, She half-smiled.

“Mrs. Russo, I was told she died.” I stated, apprehensively, beginning to question her mental faculties.

“Oh, no, sweetheart. She’s just fine. I can show you where she’s living when it gets light out.”

“She’s okay? Are you sure?”

“Beth is alive, Lucy.”