[Pt. 1 of 2]
Now all the parents in the universe get wise for one instant, and they say amongst themselves, all at once: “Well, if our children are so stupid as to not rise up and slay us, then let us rise up this day and slay THEM, and push THEM into Hades.”
So the parents did this. Whether they were still half-asleep, draped in their bathrobes prior to sunrise, holding their mug of coffee in one hand with a folded newspaper under their other arm and wearing slippers, or even if they work the night shift and are currently at their job, wherever that happens to be (perhaps the movie theater or the hyena cage at the zoo), they stop their present action and begin the chore of shoving their children down to Hades, which is the gloomy Land of the Dead.
Once all the children have been eliminated, the parents realize that the universe is perfect. So they begin to weep. But these are not tears of grief, no: this is at once an excess of joy at beholding the prospect of an existence of repose, yet coupled with the realization that they, too, these practitioners of filicide, must someday expire; albeit peacefully and naturally — and this latter feeling is accompanied by sorrow because, even if the parting is made as pleasant as possible, no one ever truly wants to abandon the bliss of a universe that is devoid of children.
But the tears stop eventually, and the parents resolve to savor to the fullest every pulsation that remains of their now-pristine world. So they return to reading their newspaper, or sitting in their lawn-chair and eating a donut, or mowing their lawn, or watching their favorite politically-themed television program.
Everything turns out great. Even tho most of the humans still alive are in their late fifties, sixties, or seventies, by the time the children are gone, the amount of time that the remaining parents have to enjoy this life is surprisingly ample: they find that they can easily do all the things that they desire to do, like go bowling or bake pies.
Then, when the first parents begin to fall asleep (by which I do not mean literally slumber — I’m trying to be polite and use sleep as a euphemism for death), the other parents who remain alive manage to curb their grief-impulse by simply looking the other way.
For instance, say that Fred and Martha, a married couple who lives in the suburbs, walk over to visit the house of their friends Jay and Fran, on Tuesday night, because they all made plans to play bridge (the trick-taking card game). However, when Fred and Martha ring the doorbell, nobody answers. After waiting what seems a reasonable amount of time, the visiting spouses open the front door: No one locks doors anymore, because all the children died in a colossal act of murder about a decade ago, remember; therefore crime became nonexistent, and it is pointless to protect one’s property from a purehearted populace. So Fred and Martha cautiously enter the house of Jay and Fran, shouting as follows:
“Yoo-hoo! Fran and Jay, are you home? This is the voice of your neighbors, Fred and Martha — we’re here for the bridge game. Did you forget about our date? We’re going to continue slowly pacing throughout your house, searching for you, in hopes of finding that you’ve both lost track of time and are simply reclining in easy chairs, perhaps listening to radio broadcasts of political talk shows on headphones at high volume, and that’s why you cannot hear us at the moment… We certainly hope that, when we open up the door to your bedroom (which, I warn you, we’re currently approaching — it’s the last room that we dare search in, and we’ve exhausted all other options), I say, once we open this door, we sure hope that we don’t catch you in flagrante delicto, dear Fran and Jay; for, in that case, we, Martha and Fred, would be tempted to join you, and that might complicate our future friendship as neighbors… OK, now, since we’re receiving no answer from you, we have no choice but to turn the knob and enter…”
Then Fred and Martha open the door to the master bedroom at Jay and Fran’s house. And there on the waterbed are Jay and Fran, fully clothed and lifeless.
“Ah, they fell asleep while slumbering; that’s too bad,” sez Martha to Fred. “Let us leave now, and think no more of this.”
Fred and Martha then quietly shut the bedroom door behind them and leave the house of Jay and Fran. Between themselves, the still-living couple never mention these neighbor-friends again. The bodies of Jay and Fran remain on the waterbed undisturbed. And they eventually decompose.
So this is what I meant when I said above “the other parents who remain alive manage to curb their grief-impulse by simply ostriching their heads.” Every instance of death in the parent-only universe occurs exactly this same way and is dealt with in just this fashion. When it comes time for Fred and Martha to die, they shall lie down on their own waterbed, in their own home, and close their eyes and drift into dreamland, equally pleasantly. Some of their own neighbor-friends will show up next Wednesday evening to play their regular game of horseshoes (a contest between two pairs of living spouses using four horseshoes and two throwing-targets set in a sandbox area in the backyard of a suburban house’s lawn), and this couple — say their names are Tom and Jen — will wait a polite amount of time for Fred and Martha to appear. When the latter fail to show up for this scheduled event, Tom and Jen will enter the house of Fred and Martha, to seek them out. And they shall find them in bed; then sigh: “You snooze, you lose.”
All the parents in this child-free utopia take their leave of life, like so.
[To be continued…]
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