the Society

August 5th

**TRIGGER WARNING** pretty hard themes (infant death, mental health and cancer), kind of bleak story, pretty heavy

Note: this is a revised version as at 23-01-19.

Postnatal depression is categorised as major affective disorder as suffered specifically by mothers following childbirth, even with no birth complications afflicting the mothers or their children. The disorder has been blamed in court cases in which a mother has suffered a psychological breakdown that has led to the death of her children, either by neglect, murder or manslaughter. Establishing the aetiologies of major depressive disorder has been disruptive at best in the past, but postnatally, one would be inclined to attribute hormonal changes and the emotional and physical trauma of birth to the onset of the disorder. Interestingly, this disorder has been noted in adoptive parents, or had been noted.

I was a doctor, before it happened. A paediatric oncologist. Not the most life-enriching of careers, as some might say, but it was as rewarding as it could be. Others may say that helping children was enriching in its own right, and others still may say that one should not bother to enrich one's life in a world where children die of cancer. It would not be a lie to say that cancer treatment on the most absolute of adults has been described as a living hell; most people know about the hair loss, and the nausea, however, the internal burns from the radiation, and the toxicity of someone's sweat which prevents them from sleeping next to their loved ones during chemotherapy are not quite as visible to the outside eye. I saw some of these affects replicated after the world ended; radiation poisoning ran rampant through the population like a disease that knows only its own geography. Further out from the uninhabitable sites, the signs were less visible; babies were born 'wrong', what the more faithful among us might have called 'demons', but they were no more than malformed as a result of their parents gnarled and twisted DNA. I saw mothers holding their children and crying, crying that our community could not have another capable hand, and crying that they had caused the birth – as births like this were synonymous to suffering – of this creature who wheezed quietly and stared blankly into the world.

We are three hundred and sixty-one now – a number which I know would not have the sufficient genetic variation to sustain a new colony without fear of inbreeding; that number sat, out of reach, at several thousand – only further increasing the chances of birth defects and chronic illnesses in the population – but no one who knew that said it out loud. This number of three hundred sixty-one changes most days, each birth, each death, each survivor. I was lucky to be accepted, lucky because of the life I had chosen before the destruction. As few medical supplies as we have, knowledge has become a powerful resource.

I remember when I was young, and a bit of a smartass, my daddy would tell me how he taught me how to use a spoon. I am watching a grown woman now, unfortunately afflicted before the disasters, reaching for the spoon in her now elderly mother's hand, her mouth open and dotted with spilled rice from the bowl, also in the custody of her mother. Some here have argued that the two were more of a burden on the Society than young children, unable to reap the benefits of two new workers in a few years' time, however, Suzanna, the mother, has since proven herself a prodigy in making clothes out of even the most tattered material. Cadence, her daughter, although not deft enough to handle a needle and thread, seemed to enjoy 'helping', as much or as little as people could consider her awkward handling of the materials help. My heart pangs when I see her and I wonder how much she knows about the world as it is now, but my professional mind tells me not to concern myself, not here.