THE MOTHER SIEGE: A DYSTOPIAN THRILLER

Chapter 2: THE MOTHER SIEGE: A DYSTOPIAN THRILLER

Copyright (c) 2013 Phyllis Zimbler Miller

All rights reserved.

               Natalie sat in her pediatrician’s module after seeing the last patient of the day.  She still had her remote patients to check on, but that could wait.

            While seeing the patients she had forced herself not to think of the government’s order, although the parents of the children she saw had all asked her what she thought.  Her standard reply had been: “I never comment on government decrees.”

            Now, though, the horror of the decree flooded her.  She tried to look on the bright side: She did not have babies that would be brought up entirely by the government.  Her children already were old enough to have their personalities rather well-formed.  But Julie didn’t officially exist.  Hiding her would probably be impossible and, even if successful, a terrible life.

            Natalie had so far prevented the appearance of asthma in Julie by using homeopathic remedies researched through thousands of years of recorded history.  But the specter of developing asthma still hung over the child.

            Think, Natalie, think, she told herself.   What do you know and what can you do?  

            The Provisional Government had outlawed all future marriages of any kind in 2035, two years before Jonah was conceived.  That edict had not hit Natalie very hard because she wasn’t seriously dating anyone at the time.  Her last year of medical school took up all her time and more.

            The government had first compelled all men from the ages of 18 to 38 to provide sperm samples.  Then all males, including newborns, had been given a sterilization shot. 

            With the sperm samples the government set up sanctioned sperm banks where women could choose the sperm donors for their children.  The identity of these donors was, of course, kept secret.  No men ever knew whether they had become fathers. 

             Mothers-to-be were allowed as many sperm donations as needed until they had two healthy children.  And if Julie had been as healthy as Jessica, the government would have allowed Natalie to keep her twins even though she had an older child.

            Natalie had another secret from the government.  She was what was known several hundred years ago in Spain in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella as a Marrano, a secret Jew.  The Provisional Government had outlawed religion, but numerous religious groups practiced in secret.  Jews already had historical experience in this.

            Now Natalie thought of the Bible story of Lot and his two daughters when they believed they were the only people to survive the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The daughters made their own father drunk and slept with him “to preserve seed.”  

            How could she save her own children but give them no other people to interact with?  All right, she knew she meant give them no other people to breed with when they were older? 

            Could she find a few other mothers willing to go to any lengths to save their children from government group homes?  The risk of telling anyone else was huge, but there were other reasons to do so. 

              How could she be so selfish as to come up with a plan to save her own children and not at least try to save some other children?  As a pediatrician she had taken an oath to save lives.

            Now she had the opportunity to truly do this.

            Two more Bible stories sprang into her mind.  The first story was that of baby Moses put into the rushes along the Nile after the Pharoah had decreed that all Jewish male babies be put to death.  The second story that of King Herod decreeing that all male babies be put to death.

            The liturgy of Yom Kippur came to her:  “Who shall live and who shall die?”

           Whose children should she try to save along with her own?

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If you enjoy reading about the historical past as well as the imaginative future, see my cold war memoir TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY here on Wattpad at http://budurl.com/TAonWattpad