Son

by
Tim Lejeune
©2002

"Son," she said, "I need to ask something." She has just turned 80 today, but calls me Son, just like I call her Mother . . . because it's not just genes that get passed down the blood line of the generations. "Something rather stupid."

She pours another drink, always the same drink, a mix in a shot of three bottles with smudgy markings that contain I don't know what, but it's always the same mix, which she drinks with care, and joy. I'm drinking a Coke. There is no point in trying to outspirit a Goddess. The news broadcast babbles on in the background. "What is cloning?"

She knows what it is. The reproduction of a living entity. Copying. "But how do they do it?"

I have very little to offer her, I fear. You take an egg, you suck it empty. You put in the information of one person, instead of two. You Frankenstein it, and place it in a womb. That's it, right? Plain and simple.

"So they still need a womb? They need a woman? The baby is born out of a human being?"

Yes. I think.

She pours another drink, and stares at the broadcast busying itself with far away lands. After a while, she gets up, and walks over to the phone. It rings. She turns the telly off, and answers it.

The house is quiet. Almost time to go home.

Almost time to stop looking for answers.

The End