"Don't show me. Not yet. I want to have one last minute of blessed ignorance."

Water from the heavy fog was dripping steadily from the pinesap-clogged gutters of the Gaspar Mountain Clinic. It collected in a plaster birdbath in the side yard, shaped like a smug raccoon holding aloft a halved watermelon, and dripped down the grooves along its muzzle, like some rural weeping saint. The examination room was decorated with owls burnt into sections of tree trunks, mounted fish, and models of inflamed organs.

"Are you ready, Sir?"

The man sighed. "Fine. Give me the clipboard." The doctor passed the papers to him, and he skimmed them with a visible expression of distress. "Shit."

"Adisson-"

"I'm not surprised, I mean, I was expecting this all along." He sighed. "But I'm too fucking old for this."

"Professor Yuri-"

"Look at me, carping along like some high school girl who doesn't know how to use a rubber, but I think I've deserved my solitude, don't you? No one's fucked me for- well, you don't need to know that, but I know this thing doesn't have a father. God damned fucking government." He looked at his doctor, with his brow furrowed uncomfortably, and sneered. "No smoking, no coffee; give me some leeway. It looks like cursing is the only vice I've got left." He paused. "Motherfucker."

"There are options available, you know. You don't have to keep the baby."

Yuri chuckled mournfully. "You and I both know that it's useless trying to scrape out a Catgut man."

Looking beyond the professor's crudeness, the doctor knew he was speaking the truth.

It had been, what? Fifteen years? Since the accident in Catgut Valley. It wasn't clear whether the Catgut Mining Co. or the Catgut Atomic & Life Science Ranch had been responsible for the spill and the massive environmental exodus that followed, the glut of birth defects and industrial accidents, but now the town was abandoned, devolved into a sickly spiral of weeds and hurricane fencing. The tiny diner that had once fed and entertained the hapless families of the Catgut "pioneers", with its rotating metal hamburger sign, cast an oddly eerie shadow over the land, the once whimsical icon now twisting lazily in heavy winds like a hanged carcass, occasionally emitting a rusty shriek.

The survivors had mostly relocated to Gaspar Mountain, and the only doctor's office quickly equipped itself to deal with the PTSD of industrial workers, the guilty depression of scientists, the chemical burns and cancer from the accident, and, most notably, the pregnant men.

Rather than another byproduct of the accident, this was intentional. Even when it was running smoothly, Catgut Valley boasted excessively high mortality rates for such a tiny community. In an effort to keep the population steady, they enabled men to bear children, and both genders would sometimes spontaneously asexually reproduce if they got past 40 without bearing any children. It was easy to sterilize the women, but the men... their new reproductive organs were unwieldy and unwelcome, connected and buried haphazardly amongst their other systems. Most of them decided they'd risk pregnancy rather than go under the knife. Abortions proved similarly difficult.

Adisson Yuri rarely visited the clinic. He came in every few months for free psychological evaluations and counseling for a year and a half after moving to Gaspar Mountain, but eventually holed himself up in his home, fixing farm equipment and cars and breeding animals when he needed money. He'd decided that the complimentary coffee wasn't worth the drive, and while the antidepressants were nice, he'd grown tired of the weightless feeling they gave him.

He was a severe-looking man; graying hair, veins visible through his pale skin, eyes focused to burning point through his outdated tortoise-shell reading glasses. He distrusted the physician, if only a little, because he was at least ten years Yuri's junior. Since when were they letting kids out of med school so early?

"Well. I, um, I can set you up with an assistant to help you around the house and advise your health practices." He shriveled under Yuri's gaze. "I'm not implying that you're feeble or- It's just that you live alone. They can also help you coordinate an adoption."

"Who said I wanted to abandon it? If I'm going to suffer, I might as well have something to show for it." In truth, Adisson was planning on foisting the child off on someone else as soon as it was born, but he liked making the doctor uncomfortable.

"Of course. It's your decision, Yuri."

And then Yuri tensed in a way the doctor recognized all to well, and instinctively handed him a trash pail to vomit into. As he retched, Yuri felt that this act was a good way to sum up his emotions regarding the day's events so far.

---

Thus ends part one. Now, you may think this terribly bourgeois, but I honestly have trouble deciding on the genders of characters sometimes. So: vote for the sex of the assistant/nurse. Romance likely won't come into play, but there's a high probability that some sexualized teasing/caring/slight humiliation will surface, with Adisson on the submissive end.

-- Edited by BIOHAZARD on Tuesday 19th of April 2011 03:48:19 AM