Ashamed to have lived. Those will be the words on my tombstone if I wasn’t destined for a potter’s grave. My entry into the world exceeded the family quota on natural born children. After all, embryos that had been genetically edited were disease-resistant, free from genetic disorders, more intelligent, and able to endure climate calamities better. They were also easier to track and control. That last part was what made mom and pop the rebels they were – they didn’t want their children tracked, didn’t want them controlled.
That also meant that I wasn’t planned. And hiding two children is a lot harder than hiding one. My earliest memories are of moving constantly, avoiding security, avoiding immigration, avoiding law enforcement, moving from unregistered hovel to undocumented shelter to refugee camp. When I became old enough to realize that these mad, chaotic movements were made because I existed, that I had the temerity to be born into a world where I was little more than a burden, I couldn’t understand why I was here.
I just knew I didn’t have a choice, running from shadow to shadow to avoid government surveillance apparatuses. They weren’t even looking for me, just those like me. It wasn’t until I met Sarah that I realized why. The unregistered, the unedited, could do something their engineered peers couldn’t do: We could have children. The one thing that I swore never to do was the only thing that made me special. As much as I love Sarah, that passion isn’t worth bringing another soul into this broken world.
See the author’s published work here.
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