Tevun-Krus #84 - Best of 2020

First Time Blues Affair - @WilliamJJackson - AfroFuturism

First Time Blues Affair

An AfroFuturism story by WilliamJJackson

"I want to give birth to a baby, not a starship," Sharqueen announced across an opulent mauve chamber full of expectant mothers. Needless to say, her statement caused no little stir among the rows of patient, waiting women in their long, prismatic gowns and pristine aerogel pendulum earrings. Seeing through her dark matter eyes the restlessness of her peers, the side eye glances, casual passing of judgement 'girl you best hush' tightening along many a jawline, Sharqueen sat back in the curved plush seat and rubbed a minimal bump along her abdomen.

This, her first time beneath the Celestial Light Arkestra with her womb scientifically in bud, she needed this perfect event to produce that one vital seed. 

A human being.

Waiting under the space dome became hearing the obvious in closed quarters.

Sisters gabbing about space travel, the scarcity of aerosilks, holidays gel-gliding between dwarf planets before getting wombed. Others mumbled, eyes cut to scalpels at Sharqueen, praised a woman's duty to discretion.

"Colonization of the Far Off means homes are needed. Bridges. Rovers. I thought everyone knew that."

"Mmm, some people just want to get noticed."

"Tradition died when we made pregnancy a tool, not a demand."

And other such niceties an outcast is likely to hear.

The sound to her ears of, "The doctor will see you now," was music to her dainty ears.

"You do realize what you're asking for is complex," Doctor Anuba stated it with the clarity of visible light shining on the far off Earth everyday. He had a perennial stillness to him, as if the body moved only between eye blinks of those watching him. A cool doctor, never irate, who passed along bad news as if it was a giant animal baaloon in a parade.

"Mm-hmm." Sharqueen thought the quick invitation into this office of Martian bluewood and myrrh incense might lighten the mood in contrast to the waiting room. How wrong her opinion was. "You seem rather opinionated, Doctor. I chose the season to birth. I should get the choice of what comes outta me, even if the what is a who."

"I understand very well, Miss Lamotte. But there is a reason why women liberated themselves from the morass of childbearing three centuries ago. The fit baths along Titan do the work for us. Women get to be free. Pregnancy is a more of a career move, as you know, part of the early summer fashion trends to look healthy in winter. It's easier to input the molecules for a ship, a bridge or an Omega Thought Body, carry it for a few months and then allow quark molders to finish the growth-work than it is to wrestle with the intricate dietary and genetic malformities of a real human inside of you."

He paused for an effect known only to him. "And what would people think?"

"But it is what I want. I took the career path for a Colony Mother, passed all the physical examinations, the damnable exams, took a needleship from Monrovia all the way out here to Centaur-in-the-ice-bloody-dark! For my first birth I want a child, a boy, dark-skinned like me yet not me in that impeccable way Life makes things strange, smiling and full of fat life and wide eyes fit for exploring. I've seen the motherships, fatherships, sonships and even third cousinships pushing out into deep space with their momma's name gene-carved into their hulls. But who flies them, hmm? I want to provide the pilot to one of those kinships. Now, you in, or you out? 'Cuz this wee dwarf world's got six other obstetricians who could say yes, not to mention a few streetwives who buff and cut cells into anything for the right price. But I have my morals to consider."