Timothy and the Baby Factories

It wasn’t ten years after the accident they first started to appear, or perhaps he simply started to notice them. They would sneak into his fields, eat his crops and drink from the river, leaving nothing behind. They must have had excellent eyes, seeing as they came in the night, mostly. And they were quiet, methodical. He respected them for that.

There was a definite art to these raids, and though the farmer would have less crop for himself, he had to admit he was somewhat charmed by these pests, who were always one step ahead of his game. He would notice little footprints in the soil and smile, thinking ‘they sure did pull it off again, little buggers’.

There were only a few of them at first, but because they were so good at sneaking around, they multiplied. The generations that followed were less sneaky, because their increasing number meant that they could easily overpower the old farmer if they needed to, so they didn’t really need to sneak anymore. Each year their numbers increased, and they were eventually so bold that they just walked into the field like it was theirs.

They would come in talking on their cell phones, driving over half of his crop, shouting ‘Make way! Make way!’ and knocking the old farmer down. He would catch them preening themselves in the muddying rivers, trying to look beautiful, trying to succeed at whatever it was that they wanted to succeed at. Nothing that mattered, as far as he could tell.

One day there were so many of them that they were capable of taking out half of his yield in a single afternoon. The countryside was decimated, with all of these horrible useless creatures eating and moving and talking in the ruins. Finally, all respect for these creatures disappeared from the farmer’s heart, and he set out to kill every last one of them.

He spent a year studying them, looking for a weakness, and encouraged his neighbors to do the same. By the end of the year, the farmers had developed a chemical which they believed would get rid of the problem.

In the following year, all the farmers sprayed their crops with the chemical, and it was even more effective than they had thought. Walking out into the millions of corpses, some still half-dying, struggling to make one last phone call to their loved ones, the farmer would sometimes lament the loss of those sneaky creatures he had once respected, and who had somehow devolved into such useless and destructive things.

The farmers gradually grew back their crops, but in the following year, the creatures returned. The strongest of them had survived the chemical, and they had made babies, and the babies were totally immune.

Looking out over his ruined fields, the farmer could see where they came from. Out there, against the horizon-- the baby factories. Little rooms where they would sleep and reproduce. Little rooms they were supposed to keep clean. And sometimes their friends would come over, and they would get wasted and talk about sex, or drinking, or other useless things. But sometimes they would just watch TV. He would hear them in his fields, talking about what they liked to watch on TV. Or what they were going to have for dinner tomorrow. Or about something that one of their friends did. Or about something they didn’t understand or care about, but talked about because they thought it would impress whoever they were talking to.

Again the farmers pooled their intellects. After some deliberation, it was decided that someone should definitely do something about the baby factories. It would have to be someone who knew how to be sneaky, someone who could quietly and methodically get close enough to the baby factories to do some real damage.

Because he could still remember how the creatures used to sneak into his fields, the farmer knew that he was their man. And he did it like they used to do it, like they had forgotten how. He snuck up right to the base of baby factory number six, and planted some high grade explosives.

The building came down with a great smoky crash, and he watched from his farmhouse as the creatures scurried around, trying to understand just what had happened, trying to understand how such a horrible tragedy could have ever occurred.

Other baby factories met the same fate: numbers two, five and three followed over the next three weeks. But by the time he came to baby factory number one, arguably the most obnoxious baby factory of them all, the farmer had become so sure of his ability to sneak around that he had actually become a lot less sneaky without realizing it. While planting his high-grade explosives, he succumbed to a chemical mist sprayed out from the base of the building, and was knocked unconscious.

“…”

He awoke to a very familiar face.

“Hey dad.”

“Timothy! You mean… you…”

“Yes! I am the mastermind behind all of the baby factories!”

“Why?! Why have you done this?!!!”

“I did it because I want a nice easy job, and a car and a cell phone. I want a computer and the internet and a nice house with nice furniture and lots of empty rooms that I hardly even use. I want a beautiful wife who is addicted to plastic surgery and spends most of her time talking about stupid pointless bullshit with all her stupid beautiful friends. I want kids who play lots of video games and eat lots of candy and are rude to everyone, and who are basically exactly like me. And I did it because I hate always being too hot or too cold, or too dirty or too sweaty, and I hate having to work in those stupid ugly fields all day long! But mostly, I did it because I hate farming, and I hate you too you stupid old bastard!”

“It’s pretty cotton pickin’ irresponsible!”

“Maybe so, but you can’t stop me!”

“Well… I reckon those things are gonna stop themselves one day.”

“Ha! Fat chance of that!”

“Actually, I just happen to know that a lot of them stupid creatures out there feel the exact same way I do. See whenever they come and wreck my fields nowadays, I usually hear them going on about how much they hate that everything is getting wrecked. Hell, I figure even though they might not like that I killed all their friends and their kids, they’ll love it when I have lots of nice crops next year and they don’t have to keep fighting each other to make sure they get more than everyone else …”

“That’s where you’re wrong, asshole. You don’t have any fields anymore. You’re a wanted terrorist now, and you’re going to stand trial…”

“So you saying you’re gonna…”

“Yes, of course we’re going to kill you. And when we’re finished killing you, we’re going to kill everything you stand for. We’re going to hunt down all of the farmers, kill them all, and take their homes and their land for ourselves.”

And that is exactly what they did.

“Ha ha ha ha…!!!”

When they were finished killing the last of the farmers, Timothy and the creatures built bigger and more powerful baby factories, and machines that could grow and maintain the fields, so they wouldn’t need farmers to grow their crops anymore. And as the years went by, the baby factories spread out all across those fields, until finally the fields were so polluted that it was impossible to grow anything in them.

The creatures had to start eating terrible chemicals instead of food, and they all suffered brain damage because of it. They multiplied until there were so many that it was impossible to find a meaningful place for everyone, and they had to invent things and make them seem meaningful, even though it was pretty obvious that they weren’t. But none of it really mattered, because as long as they could keep driving their cars, talking on their cell phones, and making babies, they were usually close enough to happy to keep wanting to live.



THE END

 

well i think obviously they would have run out of air to breathe by destroying where that comes from too, long before they got to quite where this ended. the idea is cute. it's been done though. the problem with trying to write polemics is knowing enough diversity of details of how the universe actually works to make suspension of disbelief possible.

=^^=
.../\...

 

I HATE suspension of disbelief and I don't think you understood my story.

It's actually a metaphor for South Koreans on vacation, and how the Confucian belief system often escalates sexual tensions from innocent flirtations to pre-sexual horseplay to physical violence and finally, apocalypse.

 

i liked it myself...

 

Those babies: they're not ALL my fault. I'm only doing the naughty in the back seat of one car on one night (on the average).

 

I must say your critical skills are definitely improving, dirtydog!
Also, the idea of you having sex disturbs me.

 

There are no images in your image gallery, that is, no pictures of you, Heywood. I don't suppose there's a reason for that?
Of course, about my frequent sex life, I was lying. But give me a break about honesty -- I'm an American, after all.

 

I liked it but it was a bit short - bit blunt if you know what i mean... Like Timothy - he wasnt fatherlike at all or what you'd think the average father is like.

Quite ironic - the creatures got less stealthy as time wore on and the Farmer no longer respected them. But as time wore on for him he got less stealthy and thus he was killed.

 

I really don't want anyone who might know me to know that I come here.