My Son Igor
I want to tell you about my son Igor. His mother’s name was Minnie. She was a scientist. I met her at a science convention in Berlin. Actually I wasn’t attending the convention officially. I just sneaked in for the free food. The convention was really boring. I thought I would never get through it. But then I saw Minnie. Right off the bat I knew she was the woman for me. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She must have felt the same way about me. When I walked over to her display booth and asked her about her nanotechnology exhibit she gave me a smile that only an M woman could give. She was really something. She was made to order.
“Hi, my name’s Minnie,” she said. “Let’s not beat around the bush. I need a man and you need a woman. Maybe this isn’t a true story and maybe it is. It doesn’t matter. I want you, and I can tell by your eyes that you want me too.”
When I heard Minnie I couldn’t believe my ears. Man, I was lucky. After my last son died, I thought I was finished with M woman for good. But Minnie was not the kind of woman a man turns down.
“Yes, I want you. I can’t deny it. At the moment I don’t have a place to live. Could I stay at your place? This nanotechnology stuff is fascinating. Maybe you can give me a rundown on how it all works. I could be your lab assistant. You could teach me the ropes and I could help you out.”
“It’s a deal,” said Minnie. “You can move in tonight.”
Minnie and I never got married but nine months later our son was born. It was Minnie’s idea to name him Igor after a famous Russian scientist. He was a beautiful baby. Neither of us were surprised at how handsome he was. Good looks ran in both our families. He was smart too. He didn’t have the spaced out look that some babies have. He was always watching Minnie and I work in the lab. He was the most curious baby I had ever seen. Unlike other babies who would be crawling all over the place and getting in trouble, I would just set Igor on his mother’s desk in the lab and he would stay put for hours watching us work.
The years passed quickly. There were many happy times for our little family. At first Minnie kept me in the dark about the true nature of her experiments. But gradually over the years she let me in on what she was really working on. The government had funded her research. They wanted her to come up with an intelligent minature machine, one that would work inside the body to study and destroy disease. There was a lot at stake. Governments all over the world were developing sophisticated viruses. Germ warfare was a real threat to mankind’s continued existence. Until someone could find a cure to some of these new diseases, the human race had one foot in the grave.
But things were not going well for Minnie. The government had spent a lot of money and they were counting on her to come through. The pressure was intense and one failure after another was making her depressed. I was afraid she would go off the deep end. It was an open secret that Minnie’s parents had both gone crazy. I didn’t want it to happen to her too. I encouraged Igor to help her in the lab. At that time he was only 7 years old but I thought his presence would be just what Minnie needed. I was dead wrong.
“Ow! I burned my finger!” yelled Igor.
“That should teach you a lesson you little shit,” said Minnie. “This isn’t a playground. If you screw up, you’re going to get hurt.”
“I’m sorry mom. I will be more careful next time.”
“Hey, cut it out Minnie. Igor has come a long way since he first started helping you,” I said. “Give him a break. He’s only seven and he’s trying his best. You shouldn’t be so hard on him.”
