Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
I hate women. I really do. I guess that’s probably why I chose this life. Or maybe it’s as they say, it’s this life that chose me. I’d heard that up here in the colonies the women are obedient. That they do as they’re damn well told.
I’ve been here a month. Sold everything for a one way ticket to dig holes in a rock that just barely feels the warmth of our sun. I had to get away. Away from the screech of all those who wanted equality. What a fucking joke! Women, successful women at least, aren’t they just aping the attributes of men? Then, who better to do a man’s job than a man, am I right? And don’t get me started on those who’d have themselves butchered, baby killers when all they have to do is keep their bloodied legs shut. I am right.
It sickens me and I grew so tired, you know, of bearing the weight of this farce.
The population on the base is precisely controlled. Here a miner dies he is replaced. I’m the latest replacement. I love that every detail is regimented. Where even the women here agree to be sterilized. Most are old and haggard and don’t look like they could conceive a bright idea, let alone a child. But, then, there are those who came here as children and they, too, are sterilized when they come of age.
I met one. A stupid girl who came up to me at the Working Man’s Saloon. To her credit, she politely asked if it was all right if she spoke. I liked that. She brought me drinks all night. She whispered of how great it was to meet a fresh man. One who’d not been here long enough to get the dust in their blood and she told me that she’d love to swim naked in the deep blue pools of my eyes.
How easily she slipped into my bed. It was true what they said of this place. The women of the moons are only good for two things and I am yet to taste her cooking.
So young and beautiful, she is a precious commodity. Mine to have and do with as I please. She could’ve had anyone. But she chose me. She talked about books and she talked about art and she talked about how if she was down back on Earth that she had a plan to clean up its filth. She would write novels and she’d paint about the lush colours she had never once touched and people would love again the Earth… just shut up and lay still, you stupid, stupid girl.
That was a month ago. The night before my rotation down at the face of the core. All that is left of her now is this note on the screen and for the first time I taste the grit of this moon in my lungs.
A government shuttle took her away. Was it luck that deemed her that one in a million for who the sterilization did not take? Did she know that if pregnant the corporation would whisk her away, fly her and my child back down to Earth, to that place she so badly craved to be?
“Stupid…”, I say to the reflection in the screen in my tiny room on this malignant base on this foul lonely moon so very, very far from home.
A rough diamond from a foul subject, with a narrator as toxic as the views he holds.
Tight work, Hari. The easy way out would have been to third-person this.
I’ve drawn a fair amount of flak for telling the story from the point of view of this ‘toxic’ asshole. But then I wanted people to be angry and as attached to the story as possible. Thank you very much for your comments, Jae and continued inspiration.
Would it be sexist to say I wished an unfortunate accident upon him?
Not at all, Simon. I’m not a great believer in karma but I do derive a certain degree of satisfaction from seeing people slapped upside the head by their own bigoted convictions.
Kind of on the nose. Remember, show, don’t tell.
Thank you for reading and I very much appreciate your comments. I think you are right, it was didactic. In this one I didn’t want to show, I wanted to tell. In much the same fashion as woman are told what to wear or how their bodies should function or how they must be accepting of certain conventions laid out and carved into stone by men. But still, in saying that, I agree, it was an imperfect attempt.
Risky but I see what you were doing there. Thank you, we need so much more of this.
Thank you. I’m very glad you got something from it. 🙂
You are an extremely brave boy or an extremely stupid boy…and I doubt that you’re stupid. There might be mobs outside your door right now with torches and pitchforks. Gutty work. I can’t say I liked it just in case my wife and daughters find out (but I did).
Thanks R.J, I think that the current climate of rampant misogyny that seethes through our media is a tough cookie to crumble. Ham fisted as I am I believed that risk was worth it… I’d rather be gouged with a critics barbs than have to endure this universal lack of sexual equality, as my own daughter sadly must.
Love how you wrote bloodied legs and not bloody. Our bodies are our own.
I agree Emma, the violence of the act is now, in some quarters, less of a crime than the victims attempt at reclaiming possession of their own body. Crazy.
Well that made me think. So very topical. Well done.
Much appreciate you taking the time to read it 🙂
Not so stupid girl. Loved it.
Thank you. Not sure if it entirely said what I wanted it to… but my will is good 🙂