In school, the boys were trained to stay together in close-knit groups near the glass chamber where the girl-specimen was kept.
Someone from the fifth grade was humming a famous tune:
No such thing as ghosts.
No such thing as monsters.
No such thing as girls.
No such thing as…
“Why won’t she begin taking off her clothes and do the whore-dance?” the freckled boy named Kevin asked. “I thought that’s what they were supposed to do. They have to–”
Annoyed by Kevin’s questions since the field trip began, Robbie cut him off: “See, Kev, thing is, Prof. Goodman said that she’s kinda in a trance. All she’s got are her racial memories. And she has to be electrocuted to bring them out. You should have listened to the lectures. Save us all the trouble of having to listen to your stupid questions.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah” Kevin said.
“In some ways, she looks like us,” Harry, the class president, said. “It’s strange,” he added, awed by the girl’s features which all of them had seen only in textbooks before.
“They were humans, too, Harry.” Carl said. “Once.”
“My daddy said that girls don’t have souls.” Kevin.
“Tell us something we don’t know, Kev,” Carl replied, his tone sarcastic, but Kevin was too excited to notice.
“They produce milk, too. From the mammary glands. How disgusting is that,” Kevin again. He scratched his elbow, and the skin peeled off and revealed the greenish flesh underneath.
“Shut up, Kev,” Harry said. “That’s common knowledge. Just shut up, okay.”
“Can’t imagine living in the twentieth century,” Robbie said. Something black quivered in his throat, wanting to come out, but Robbie was quick to swallow it back again.
“Me, too,” said Harry. “Babies still come out from a girl’s body then. Yuck.”
“Good thing someone figured out how to make them extinct,” Carl added. “Dad said that, many years ago, men marry girls for money and beat them, sometimes kill them, too. And the silly girls still kept on lobbying for their rights to vote.”
Laughter. Nobody had said it more succinctly.
Harry’s tongue suddenly fell out while he was laughing. It would take three days for it to grow back completely. Happened all the time, but the speech test would be tomorrow. God, he would need to repeat the whole semester, because the goddamn tongue chose this time of the month to slough off.
“That’s all right, Harry,” Carl told him and patted his friend’s back.
Harry said nothing. He would not be able to produce any sound until his tongue grew back.
The boys went back to observing the sleeping girl. They were silent this time, perhaps out of deference to Harry’s condition.
The girl was hooked up to a cryogenic unit, one of the latest models which did not require the test subject to be immersed in a liquid. The boys agreed that she was a little on the Aryan side–perfect skin, long straight hair, no signs of molting or dripping at all, the whole works. In short, the girl, or all girls for that matter, was not yet human.
“Is this going to be on the quiz?” Robbie.
“Think so,” Kevin answered.
“You don’t really have to know all the technical details about her. Just choose the answer which degrades her species, then you’ll be fine.” Carl said.
Prof. Goodman, the schoolmaster, signaled from a distance to indicate that the tour was over.
“Girls are ugly, ugly, ugly,” Robbie murmured the national mantra as they all filed out in the hallway straight to the waiting school bus.
The boys staggered on their pudgy feet, and their swarthy bodies left a trail of slime across the floor.
—
© 2007 Kristine Ong Muslim
Tags: Kristine Ong Muslim
April 20th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Nice story, Kristine! This one took me back to high school biology class. And it’s an interesting statement on the future of the male-female relationship. I for one hope the future is NOT like this!
April 20th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Kinda creepy, body parts sloughing off and all. Great voice and flow–good dialogue, too!
–dj
April 20th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Lots of neat political satire in this piece. My favorite line is: Just choose the answer which degrades her species, then you’ll be fine.” Carl said.
I’ve had quizzes which offered multiple choice answers somewhat similar to this. I guess I was being prepared to live in the world you’ve so wonderfully portaryed in this piece.
Hmm. When I think of it, I could write some really horrible tales of things I witnessed in the various universities that I attended not so long ago.
Nice work.