radioactive baby

gingerly picking our way through this desolate place that has been deserted for so many years since the contamination. wiping away layers of choking dust from objects that will be precious and useful once again. through the grey murkiness i can see a glimmer of bright red plastic. it is a red vinyl bag: my heart leaps with delight at my discovery. hastily unzipping the fat white plastic zipper, i find good modern computer equipment. a modem, a chunky monitor, a keyboard...the bag's contents seem bountiful, beautiful and endless. i wish to bring them to life, to let them feel the warming, life-giving electricity coursing, pulsing through their veins/circuits.

exhilarated from the find, i step outside the danger zone and strip off, submitting my body to the hosing, the busy lathered hands, wash away the deadly radiation.

my mother has had a baby girl; healthy, fat and pink. my father is jealous, and in a fit of rage and stupidity gives birth to a boy ten minutes later just to spite her. i hold the small human, gazing at his miniature form, waving, flailing hands and feet. the skin is porcelain-like, the eyes large liquid chocolate orbs, twinkling knowingly up at me. he seems perfect but something is not quite right...i am bemused at the fact that he has no hands or feet; each arm ends in a plump finger, and each leg ends in a chubby toe. i ask myself 'is this the way it should be?' i can no longer remember what a normal baby looks like. maybe they are all born this way and the digits develop a few months later.

i go looking for a blanket and some talcum powder, for that is all a baby needs for happiness and well-being. passing through the kitchen i see my mother at the sink teaching her baby girl how to do the dishes. already the baby's hands have grown large as a woman's, dwarfing her body; the fingers weathered, red and chapped. just like my mother. just like her mother before her.

Storyscape