WHY!!

RIGHT NOW

Things are pretty bad here. I’m upset all the time because I hate living here so much. I feel depressed, cry a lot, am overly emotional. I feel neglected and unwanted. Z is really callous in dealing with me – as long as I’m not disturbing him and his schedule, or ”bothering” him when’s he’s home, he’s ok with me, even affectionate. The second he has to deal with an “issue” he shuts down, mentally tunes out, and loses interest. I’m an “inconvenience” – i don’t smoke, all his friends do, its a problem when i get bothered by it. he has such a different lifestyle, and i just cramp his style. he can hang out with me ”anytime” but its more special when he’s with them. i have to use his money, use his car. i have to eat, i have to be taken out and exercised like a dog. i am the weight of responsibility around his neck he doesn’t want.

5 YEARS AGO

i feel like the second we got married – literally the day of – he stopped making an effort. It was like he heaved a giant sigh of relief, said “oh well, its done now, no need to make an effort” and then went on with what he really wanted to do – hang out with his parents when they’re in town, or hang out with his boys. Every day for the first week of our marriage he would be out from 8:00 pm – 4:00 am. when i told him that bothered me, and i didn’t want to be left alone in a new house,  thats very much his, he was all about “how his mates are only together for a short while for the wedding, and then they’ll be gone”and ï should stop being uptight”etc etc.  one day i told him if he was later than 11:00 pm, i would lock him out and i did. he broke the door down, and our first physically abusive fight commenced.

5 years on

he’s stopped being physically abusive – at least while i’m pregnant. he never did any physical damage anyway, the damage was all psychological. my husband got so angry he wanted to hit me. really hit me, harm me. now, our fights don’t really get violent. in fact, if anyone is getting violent, its me. i’m hitting and punching him, throwing things. i broke our tv, i’ve broken his xbox controller. when i’m in a rage, i’ll break anything that comes in my way. it used to be a strong feeling before, this feeling of wanting to fling something violently across a room, but with my pregnancy maybe my hormones are lowering my inhibitions or something, and i have actually found myself breaking things twice in the last 8 months- which is saying a lot given i wasn’t in the same city for 2 months.

Why? when we start fighting, i see that ugly look in his face. the one that he used to get when he would hit me. and i know its on his mind. to his credit, he’s managed to not follow through in a while. and then i taunt him. i hit him. he thinks i’m afraid of him? he thinks his hitting is going to scare me? does he think he can intimidate me? i don’t do too well in backing down in power struggles when we’re fighting. i will show him that he isn’t cowing me. i will show him that he’s the insect, not me. i’ve gone to the point of slapping, kicking, hitting him. throwing his clothes. throwing his stuff. he threw my laptop on the ground, i threw the TV remote into his LCD screen. its the only thing in the room he owned. everything else was mine, everything else was something i had bought for him. except that damn tv. the next day, when we’d made up somehow, and we sat together to watch a movie, i’d even forgotten i’d wanted to break it the day before. i was actually a little surprised when the screen didn’t turn on and a spiderweb of cracks appeared at a familiar spot. a spot i had assualted 24 hours before….

he got that same supernatural calm he got when he talks about the car now. i had an accident at 5:30 pm, hyperventilating, screaming, wondering if i was in labor because it hurt so much my sister took me screaming to the ER. Z didn’t turn up till after everything was over. he turned up 3 hours later at 8:30 pm to pick me up from my sisters.  he didn’t even call once in the middle. he made his friend call me. then said his little 20+year old brother would come pick me and take me to the hospital if i needed to go again and my sister couldn’t take me. how did Z think that was a good idea? after that harrowing ordeal, i was awake the whole night crying, while he screamed at me at how it was my fault anyway, and that it wouldn’t have happened to a better driver. i screamed and yelled too. till my stomach hurt. i didn’t care about the baby then. i didn’t care about my health then. i just wanted someone to die. i just wanted this shit relationship to end, and since we didn’t seem to be doing it i wished one of us would just die. die die die. i told him to get out of the room, get out of the bed. and when he didn’t, i went and curled up on the hard uncomfortable two seater in the living room, found the xbox controller under my ass and got up (a huge physical task given i’m 8 months and HUGE) and thew it into the bedroom wall. things haven’t gotten better since then.

he was nice to me the day after. but its not easy to sustain that now is it, because i’m just so damn difficult. he was out again till 4 am, drunk off his ass when he came back, hung over for most of the day today. fought with me because i needed the house car. i can’t go anywhere, he doesn’t think its a good idea for me to be in a car. how convenient. he can be out partying, and i have to be sitting in a windowless room … doing what exactly?

there was no food in the house again. i thought i’d faint after 6 hours of not eating. and as i tried to stand on shaking legs and myself a burger, his only input was “why don’t you wait for food, you just frikkin had breakfast”.

he just bought me a bracelet. when did he go out? how did he go out if there isn’t a car? how does he get the car when he wants, and why can’t i. i feel trapped. i don’t give a shit about the bracelet. it changes nothing. it gives me nothing that i want. nurturing and caring. of being heard. of having my needs heard and met. what can a fucking bracelet achieve? i’d rather have the money he spent of that fucking shit so i can pay the framer.

i’ve called my mother, and told her i want to come to lahore for the delivery. fuck him. fuck his parents. they can shove their baby presents up their assholes. i feel like i never want to come back.

I’ve crawled into bed, my knees shaking with weakness and my stomach cramping terribly.  i’ve overdone it at work today, sitting too long, not eating or drinking enough, and this vicious little parasite in my womb is making me feel it. i’m sorry baby, mama’s been bad today. please please give her a break i pant. i close my eyes and my headache starts, and all i can do is moan and hope God is kind today.

z saunters in, bringing in a whiff of vile smoke from his mother’s cigarette. “go away!” my voice is high pitched, whiney and irritating even to me. “you stink of smoke!!!!”

he stops, caught in the headlights of my glare. pinned, he mumbles something about showering. he returns one minute and exactly five seconds later, in a dirty towel he’s picked up from laundry, but has been rinsed down and is not smelling as vilely as before. he throws on his sweats, the ones that he hasn’t been able to wear because of the the huge hole in the butt and jumps into bed. “don’t thrash about for God’s sake” that same shrill shrew-like voice says. who is this person i wonder in my pain and nausea befoggged brain.

i wait for him to extend some bodily comfort, some cuddle, something, ANYthing to help. nothing. alarmed, i turn, and his eyes are closed, and his mouth is open, and the start of gentle snores begin. “you’re asleep ALREADY! get UP. the baby is trying to kill me! rub it!” i poke him till his eyes open. “huh wha what?!” he wakes up. its been two minutes since he’s walked into the room, and ten seconds snce he lay down in bed. how does the man sleep like this!

“belly time!” i say firmly.

he groans. everything in him wants to say no.

“i’m pregnant with your child. i think i’m going to die. i have a headache. have mercy man” i shamelessly play the pregnancy card, because dammit, I am and i’m in hell.

mercifully, he reaches over a half hearted arm, and his fingers wiggle across my belly. lower than my belly actually, where the pain epicenters. “are you giving your mama a bad time baby?” he says. the circles are like heaven. circulation starting to my poor squashed-in-clothes womb. i can’t help the moan of appreciation that escapes. bliss in a belly rub.

z gets into it. awake a little more now, he decides he wants to talk to the baby, which means he puts his lips to my stomach and whispers stuff till i giggle helplessly. i don’t complain. it actually feels like the baby is feeling better. i sure as hell do. the knee shaking has stopped, and my pain is limited to just my head now.

z curves towards me, ready to sleep, one hand on the baby. occasionally, even in sleep, his hand continues to rub. i finally asleep into blissful blackness, content.

I’ve peed into a conveniently available disposable cup from the stack we took to the beach last weekend. It’s quite neatly done – pee into cup, stick dropper into cup and squeeze, squeeze dropper over strip. I’m trying to silent the wild rantings in my head “omg, i am. omg, what if i’m not. omg what will i… lalala i’m not, i’m not, i’m not”. i always play the worst case scenario so the worst case doesn’t seem bad when it happens, just inevitable. i can hear z outside the door, breathlessly waiting, pretending he doesn’t really care either.

i ignore the strip, throw away the pee, throw away the cup, busily wash my hands thrice with anti bacterial soap. one of my few indulgences to germ phobia. wash away little black germs contaminating my hands. wash away wash away i hum. the ritual of washing my hands (borderline OCD of me – this will so haunt me when i’m old and crazy) makes me feel happy, clean and in control.

i look at the stick.

its positive.

i knew it.

i take a deep breath against the stupid grin of elation. get a hold of yourself. you’re going to be.. oh my god i can’t think about it. oh my god. what will happen. how will it live here. how will i work? who will earn. all of this was supposed to be sorted!

i swing the door open, breathless with enormity, and z falls through the door from leaning in. what happened? are you!? i say.. “yes. its positive. i don’t think i know you well enough!” i wail. he blinks. he grins and says ‘”you ARE! WE are!” and he hugs me. then it registers what i said.

“you don’t know me? he’s a little baffled. we’ve been married five years! we’ve been trying to have a baby for a year!” he gapes at me

my cheeks flush with embarrassment. it was my birthday when i freaked out and said – lets have babies! i had been calm till that point, but the panic had set in late night after the celebration. always a champ, z had gamely said “sure” and then figured i’d figure out the details later. only i hadn’t. i didn’t want to jinx it. especially when months and months went by.

i need to lie down.

i curl up in bed in the fetal position. z assumes the position behind me, being the big spoon only on special occasions like this one. he hates spooning. i love it. i crave it. its the only thing i miss while i’m away from him, often sleeping with four to six pillows to create the illusion of spooning.

i sigh. “we’re PREGNANT” he says.

“shut up you’ll jinx it man” i hiss. i can hear his grin its so loud behind my head. “God, how will we manage this” i sigh, and just close my eyes to the warmth of the man cuddling into me. the father of my child to be. urk. what the hell have we gotten ourselves into!

i sit, witing for my flight which is in 6.5 hours. i am eating very very slowly, bad quasi european bread and an even worse, saltless omelet. its a che che food boutique, ridiculously expensive, french imports managing the philipinos behind the counter. an indian family eats on a table, and the entire restaurant sits on the opposite side as far away as possible. i’m impressed with anyone earning rupees who can bring not only himself, but his wife, and four kids to eat a better slice of life. my heart goes out to him, but i resolutely sit at the european end of the restaurant as well – who would want to be associated with them.

what is this place, this world where i have no role? i have never been assessed head to toe and been founding lacking, as i have here. i cannot have the blond hair and blue eyes that are prized, or the arabic accent to purchase respect – i just have me, my brown self loathing skin, a tremendous fortune converted into a tiny little bit of foriegn currency. i do things here i would never do otherwise – i throw away uneaten food, because there is no beggar to give it to. i get as dressed and groomed as i possibly could be, at all times, risking back damage in heels, bloody cut blistered feet as i dispair over my spreading fat body stuffed into alien western unflattering clothes that bring out every bulge just so. every outfit i wear – no matter how expensive – hangs in an inappropriate, ugly way, like a fancy dress costume made to someone else’s order. i have to desparatelty angle myself in waist up bathroom mirrors to see what i look like, hotel light not enough to thread the requisite black hair that ineveitably sprout out of my upper lip and chin. i catch sight of myself, looking wrong, in every window, every elevator mirror. speaking in a wrong accent. asking questions no one asks, giving confusing answers no one understands. i have a dull headache from recycled, centrally conditioned air and pounding concrete pavements. i sit at a table with absolutely no connection to anyone around me. the closest i have is this brown british accented financial analyst who has successfully denied his skin – his family probably from some shameful village in punjab, he has expunged his embarrassing heritage and aligned his inconvenient name to his more success arab cousin – naiem, instead of naeem, said with a dicreet hint arab enunciation designed to impress the blond hearted. what a great addition to balance the diversity ratio – white conservative toasted golden brown, just how everyone likes it served.

there is no love story here for me. how do others do it? how do i up myself to a global standard? speak like them? speak more languages? get a foriegn degree? will this help me grow? will this make me feel better about myself? will i be more comfortable in a foreign world?

hi S******

exams r finally over. i think i failed math. how did ur’s go? what about ur univeristy? … its getting cold too… hey did i tell u about my first encounter with real live snow? had a snowball fight at 5am… still have the cold to prove it. did u know i liked computers? i’m sure u can tell: its probably the nerdy look, i guess. u know i was once told by a fishmonger that i was a geek. serisouly, no kidding … well, anyway … i’m trying to do computer science here … and i met this guy in computers class. really hardworking. has 2 jobs, trying to earn his was thru university, he’s intellegent … really admire people like that. anyway, so some of his computer stuff *seemed* to *me* as if it wasn’t correct. so i pointed out the errors and offered some advice . after about an hour or so of looking thru his program and correcting it  : i felt really good about myself … but thats not the point: the point is i met him again last week outside the exam room, five minutes before the computers exam. i said the usual, hi whats up.. etc . he had this weird-i-hate-u look on his face : he says: i got my assigment back ( the stuff i helpped him with) …

i   : oh really?

him : got an 87. (the assigment was out of 123)

i   : thats good.

him : yeah .. oh and the part u helped me with…?

i   : (with a grin on my face, expecting a thank u, all prepared to say :

hey no problem, any time) yes …?

him : it was all wrong … got a zero in that.

i   : whaa…?

him : the proffesor said what i did before *YOU* helpped me out was correct.

i   : ummm .. well .. hmm

him : okay i have to go .. cya

i   : umm .. well.. i ..

hmm… so instead of helping this poor-hardworking-2-jobs-and-univeristy-all-at-the-same-time guy, i screwed him.. royally .. cost him about 15 marks. the ironic thing is i got near perfect on my assigment… 120/123 but he doesn’t know that … ai.. yie yie. ever happened to u? something ur totally sure about, 101%, couldn’t be wrong, the thought of screwing up hasn’t even entered ur mind … and u screw up .. totally.. u wrote in ur last letter:

> u realize i had to really fight with my conscience to not write the evil\hysterically funny response i could have. glad to see u’re having “fun” at college. hehheh.

hehe: evil, hysterical and funny, *all* at the same time?

wow … sounds like some dynamite stuff.

heheh.

*face lights up*

*grins ear-to-ear*

who am i to let a little self-respect stop u from expressing ur self…? soo … go on, fire away, the next time ur totally angry, about to explode, need something/someone to totally rip apart … just email me. every thing, let me have it. let loose, be evil … show no mercy, be more graphic than quinten tarintino,  more colorfull than bruce willis, say anything u want : be evil/hyseterical/funny .. i don’t mind at all. that way u’ll be ur usual beautifull,intelgent,sexy self PLUS u’ll be evil. hyseterical and funny ALL at the same time.

woow! … what a sight …

- H*****

–

Hey S*****,

how’s it goin?

hope u got ur college aps sorted out …
the weather here is extremely irritating, all i’ve heard since i came here is that i’ll freeze my nuts off in the winter. well, its nearly decemeber,  and its no where near to the cold i’ve heard all about.

but thats okay, cause the people here are very nice. i live with 5 canadian goras … really nice ppl, very friendly, considerate … offer me food, help around with stuff, let me use their computer, ask all sorts of weird questions about pakistan … and oh yeah.. did i mention they also think i’m gay…  they think i’m gay. homo. not that they’ve send it to my face or ne thing, but some of the things they do : like the time we were all sitting around, these guys were all drunk and one of them winks at the other, as if to say watch what i’m going to do now, and puts his hand over my tigh! at that point i KNOW he thinks i’m gay(altho i’m not really!) and i know what he’s trying to do …i’m like ‘get your hand off, what the hell u think u’r doing?’ … and they start laughing like idiots…

and its not only the canadians, theres this paki guy i met, i’ve just been introduced to him, i’m like hi, hello, how’s it going … and outta the blue he just goes ‘r u gay?’. i’m serious. and altho this guy has the IQ of a pice of rock, thats not the point.

so seriously, i need to get the female version of this :  suppose if u totally didn’t know about how incredibly attractive i think u r, and u’d have seen me for the first time … would u have assumed that i was gay? … maybe something about the way i look or act? something? anything?

and incase ur having ur doubts… I AM NOT GAY …

- H*****

if its possible, i just regressed back to 1998 when i wrote this:

—

i was 17, everything was possible. if ever the world had turned on its axis to revolve around me, it was then.

i was standing in a group of friends (my god i actually had more than 5 back then) at school. First year, A levels. Bitchy Iman was there, her future lesbian tendencies suppressed into this teenage bucolic rage that lashed out at anyone within hearing distance. mercilessly cruel, this bully tortured the boys and girls of my class for an entire generation. and despite the fact that she had no personality other than caustic bitchy ridiculing comments, looked like Rumpelstiltskin and had the personality of a wicked witch, she was more popular than ever, with people (like me in this instance) fawning at her side dying to be included into the conversation, hoping and praying the ridicule would not extend to me, my looks or my family that day.

so there i am, amazed to be part of the popular crowd conversation, and there comes this random senior boy. white, a little short, glasses. a far far cry from the super hot abercrombie & fitch cutout that was the heartthrob of the year (he’d been my heart throb since grade 8 – a fact i still have never, ever admitted to anyone – like shutup!)

so i’m ignoring him, and he says my name “urr ..S****”. i actually think i didn’t hear it the first time around, because why would a boy be talking to me? and a senior one at that! i decided it was my imagination, except the circle, including iman, has stopped talking and are looking at the drama unfolding at my elbow.

“um S****.” he tries again. against every single instinct screaming otherwise, i turn. “hi, i’m H******”.

“hi, H******”

“listen, i know you don’t know me, but i think you’re incredibly beautiful and intelligent, and i just wanted to let you know, that i really really like you”

silence.

i gape, more worried that the cool kids will not DEFINITELY make fun of me. shit. who is this guy.

“is this a dare!?” it suddenly occurs to me. could they be THAT cruel!

“no no! its not. i actually just think you’re really pretty and i like you!”

“but you don’t know me!”

“huh. yes. i guess. listen, i think i’m freaking you out, so i’m going to go now. but i’ll catch you later”

and then i notice a gaggle of senior boys clutching each other watching every single thing. mortification thy name is me.

he goes away. i turn back to my friends. my face is red. “can you believe that nerd”

and then, as i’m sure they’re going to mercilessly flay me, iman says

“wow. that was really kind of sweet”

i grow old i grow old. i shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. do i dare part my hair, do i dare eat a peach?

i have measured out my life in coffee spoons. the mermaids do not sing to me.

the literature class is 1999 more than a decade ago. A dim memory of a sleepy, sunny ray highlighting dust mote in back seat, occasional breeze stirring hair past ears, young, optimistic (if ever), scribbling notes to stay awake, sitting with best best friends who were closer than my own heart, closer than (so hard to imagine) even my family. my heart aches for her. for me.

i re-read my blog, and can’t believe those words came from me. who is this articulate person effortlessly stringing words together. what a talent she has! why doesn’t she write for a newspaper! why doesn’t she write a book!

i look at my painting. what a yearning. my fingers twitch, my visions fades and my minds eye sees – more clearly than the sunlight in front of me – a pure cream colored blank canvas, black lines appear, clear, trace out my beloved… peacock is it? yes… curved neck, curved like my heart lurches, a twisting feeling which makes me want to paint it turquoise, cerulean underneath, dark blue on top, ragging it so that the turquoise peeps through, scales, scales like a fish along its neck – ah. god. to create it. to have the time. the time the time the time. how the turqiose peacock calls. like its calls in the early 2000s, in the middle of freezing sub zero winters, snuggling in a blue sunflower chen one bed cover that three other girls also had, and hearing this far off peacock call echo from across the lake – eeeaaaooo, eeeaaahhhoooonnnn. with horror movie potential – young, skinny, hot, busty co-ed walking back to her dorms.. hears a strange sound in the darkness, and shrieks running away with b grade semi sexual other worldly villan making mating call like attack sounds. a haunting sound. one with the potential to reach across from the winter of 2000 all the way to 2010, to wrench my heart and make me yearn to plough it on canvas. ironic really. i spent those four years painting karachi, yearning for my friends and the breeze, painting breeze, breeze, breeze, the ever present sea breeze that still stirs my soul and memory when i’m in it.

what have i learnt these 30 years.

to be weary.

to lose energy.

to ache when i sit too long in one position.

to let things go. big things that i would be passionate and vociferous about.

to not bother protesting. who has the energy to explain things to stupid people who will never learn anyway.

to be quiet. to learn to be quiet. when the words bubble forth and they might not achieve the desired result, i have in some instances, learnt to keep them back till a better time emerges.

to learn that i do not have any people skills whatsoever, and prefer not to have any.

to hate. to hate the place i’m in so much, and yet stay exactly where i am, and not make myself ill over it.

to hate someone so strongly, to hate her for who she is and what she has done. how can actions effect a relationship across time space and marriage so strongly, even after so long, is amazing even to me every time i see her and stifle this bucolic enraged urge to claw her eyes out, to stab her thieving heart again and again, to slit her jugular and shoot her stomach and hope she takes days and days to bleed to death, and know that only a thin veil of religion forbidding sin and telling me that to commit murder is  to forsake ones soul. only one thin reason to stop me from tearing across that curtain and killing her. never have i met anyone who deserves death so much. to fail at forgiving this bitch  – even after i have come back and am living with my rapacious, wife beating, ignorant, financially illiterate moron of a husband – is amazing every second i fail to do it.

anyway.

my eyes close. i cannot stay awake.

how i have learnt to hate in the last four years. outstripping all my achievements, all my learnings, all the things i feel wiser about and look back at my callow youth with such fondness about.

i end the note dreaming of a decade ago when my hate was solely for my parents – knowing that i loved them, they loved me, and looked after me far better than many other parents i knew, having every whim allowed and provided, a childish hate even i knew wouldn’t last a moment. how i dream of that pathetic shadow of darkness that pervades this dying body now, one step closer to the oblivion of freedom.

she sits at the keyboard, insomnia driving her forward, staring at the screen as her roommate gently snores from across the room.

the lights from the laptop drown out all else

a world map away, a message from a friend flashes silently, talking from back in time (or is it in from the future?)

heat seems so far away. so alien. she is so used to shopping for coats, and layering up, and walking impossible distances for the most mundane of things. writing seems so alien. she is so alien. an alien in residence, soul identical to her colonial masters, skin the hated brown and hair the hated black. saying stupid alien things like dustbin, without ice, pack this to go, try room. yet manfully, she tries.

*******

someone else snores next to her. deeper snores. louder, from the hollows of a fat neck and allergic congested nose. of waking up from a dirty dream with him inside her, doing unspeakably naughty things in the dark under a blanket.

of waking up to him kissing her, saying “you are beautiful, i am lucky to have married you”

of being awake, and seeing him in a photograph with another woman. realizing that the couple pose is some oedipal blur, and the woman is actually his mother. the fault is not with the viewer, the mother is possessively snuggled up to her son, his arm wrapped around her shoulder, more couple like than the disconnected and disparate photographs of the actual parents.

for an instant, she can see the claws on the witch, hooked deep into her sons soul. Terrified of letting the only true man in her life live independently.

“the biggest problem I have is with the weird and unhealthy relationship he has with his mother. If he would listen, I would tell him about Freud. How all boys have deep oedipal urges, but having the alpha male (i.e. the father) assert their rights on their mother puts these little boy perverts in their place, and eventually the feelings are suppressed. In this boys case, the father is not an alpha male. His children (including the daughter) take the authoritative role (including financial decision making) in the household, therefore, the urges were never suppressed, and they were made worse by the mother’s encouragement. They both need treatment.”

The wife is always the victim. The casualty in this comic tragedy.

Poor poor wife. Boo hoo sob sob, my husband is a loser, I must make sure my son is not like him.

The cycle repeats itself for another generation.

Two worlds up, men are slightly more independent, as are the women (which is also a problem). Men do girly things like ironing, cooking, the dishes, the trash, the yard work. They work like hamsters on speed (or meth or whatever it is called these days) on holidays and every non-work related hour to contribute to the household. They are still annoying, do not ask for directions, don’t do the housework their wives ask them to do, have affairs, have slightly unhealthy relationships with their mother and become unbearable bastards in all male company. However, women are freer, can kick their sorry motherfucking asses and keep the house if they so much as raise a hand at them.

And for that alone, I forgive this world and its men all its flaws. I want to live here forever and never go back.

i think the human mind can adapt to pretty much anything. vegetarians can eat other human beings, drink their blood and gouge their flesh, devouring, tearing as our baser instincts for survival kick in. a normal healthy man can saw through muscle and bone of his own arm with a blunted butter knife to walk home to his family.

war torn rape pillaged villagers continue sowing crop and reaping the harvest, ad executives step over their dead bosses and handle accounts, crowds watch in glee as a public flogging rips open backs and sinews and tendon of one of their own.

children, small children, blast holes into the faces of their friends and cheer at a frag won, little girls slice open frogs intestines and lab coated ghouls infect small white furry creatures with every disease known to man to kill them off in the name of science.

and women. battered abused women, go back to the place all the horrors occurred. mothers continue to put up with the awful excesses husbands enforce on them, forty years of submission and berating and awful awful bucolic rage because that is the way of life.

a small green seed will push through the hardest substance known to man and grow in the face of a mountain of hardened black lava. one sperm out of 5 million will swim up a giant canal 50 times its size and impregnate one tiny egg, salmon will swim upstream fighting a G-force that would knock the eyes out of a human pilot to mate and die, and life goes on, just as it always has, skewed towards stupid males who spend their time in ignorance, perpetuating injustice in the name of humanity and women continue to support them for survival.