From Sperm to Worms- the story of Jack
A short story, inspired by the discrepancies between how amazingly special people's lives are in fiction, and how mundane they are in real life. I hope you enjoy it! :D All comments are encouraged, especially constructive ones.
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Since the day he was born, since the moment the really rather cold air (one would think that the nurses wouldn’t turn the AC up so high in the maternity ward) stung his lungs, Jack had no idea he was Different, Special, or Other. His mother whispered that he was as she held him up to her breast, her hair sticky with sweat and tears and the remnants of screams of pain and curses on her husband’s genitals, but it didn’t really register. All he could think about was wheredidthewarmthgoit’scoldandreallyloudoutherewhyisitsobrightwhoisthiswomanwhat’sthatscreamingi’mhungryiwanttogohomewhyamiherewaitwhatiamohmygoddoireallyexistbutwhatisexistencewho’sthatpersonwhyisshegrabbingmeohmygodwomankeepherawayfrommeaaaaaaaaaaah. And then the nurse took him away to get the blood washed off and the thoughts stopped.
However, Jack’s mother’s proclamations of Extraordinariness never ceased. When the other boys started tinkering around with their nuclear particle reactors, Jack pushed around match-box cars. When the other boys refused to start talking until four years old, wet the bed until they were nine, and defended it as the outlet of their genius, Jack was potty-trained and could articulate almost full sentences by three years old. “Mama. Where bear. Want bear. Where Sissy. Want Sissy. Give me milk. Want milk.”
“Good,” his mother always said. “Those boys are the insufferable child geniuses who are going to end up a preparatory school doing pot behind the gym and generally perpetuating the awfulness of men.”
Jack’s mother was a feminist.
This became exceedingly obvious when he was bullied into playing Barbies with his older sister, Jen, who always made him play Barbie while she was Ken. “Mommy says we shouldn’t confine ourselves to gender roles,” she would tell him in a voice reminiscent of a really bad actor trying to learn lines. So he would push around the plastic pink car, pitch his voice, and ask, “So Ken, where should we go today?” He would dress her up in nice dresses and brush her hair, while Jen stomped her Ken doll around in the background, barking out commands like a Nazi drill sergeant.
Perhaps surprisingly to those who read psychology journals as if they were a pre-Protestant Reformation Catholic's Bible, this failed to affect his masculinity.
Ken had, however, affected Jen’s femininity, or maybe it had just been the outlet of her lack of it, but by the time Jack had started high school, his dear sister had gotten a crew cut and decided to make generous use of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. She and Jack had stopped playing with dolls years before.
His middle and high school years, nothing especially spectacular happened. He tried out for Varsity football, and ended up side-lined on JV. The next year he made outfielder on the softball team, and the year after that, ran track. Senior year, he worked part time at a fast food joint. Throughout high school, Jack pulled B’s and C’s, the occasional A. It wasn’t for a lack of smarts or lack of trying- he was of average intelligence and did just as much work as the next student. That is, if he skipped a homework assignment every now or then, or copied off someone’s test, it was okay. He never got caught.
He got accepted into a state school, known for its keggers, and he went to a few of these. Once, he brought home a drunk chick. She threw up on his shoes. They didn’t have sex.
He met a nice enough girl at one of these parties. She was kind of pretty, if you squinted a little and didn’t look directly at her nose. They got married a month after Jack graduated. Within a year, she was pregnant and staying at home, while Jack worked full time in a nondescript office building, the purpose of which no one was ever really quite sure. He had a lot of filing cabinets and memos and a boss who was definitely screwing the secretary. Jack didn’t blame the guy. She was hot and kind of a slut.
Shortly after their daughter was born, his wife got pregnant again. Between the two births, Jack started an affair with the slutty secretary. A short time after the baby boy was born, Jack and his wife split up. He visited the kids every week, and broke it off with the secretary, because she wouldn't stop talking about how amazing all of his other co-workers (male or female) were in bed.
He remarried, and this time the marriage lasted. They had a child, a girl, and she got along fairly well with her half-siblings. No unnecessary family tension or drama. His children’s childhoods were remarkably similar to his, and he allowed one manly tear to slip out at each of their graduations.
The children moved out, stopped visiting, came home for holidays, called on birthdays. He and his new wife grew apart, estranged, but they stayed together for the familiarity. She got a job, which he thought was nice, and they bought a bigger house, with rooms for the visitors they never had.
On his sixty-fifth birthday, he promptly retired.
On his sixty-sixth birthday, he died of a heart attack.
He did not declaim anything dramatic or wise with his dying breath. He was not filled with the regrets for a life unlived, or a love unloved, or a sight unseen.
The last coherent neuron signal that crossed his brain was, Well, this is odd.
His ex-wife, sister, children, ex-co-workers, and widow attend the funeral. They give quaint speeches about how he was a hard worker, and some even cried.
His sister goes up to the podium, and waves at her girlfriend from it.
“My mother always said my brother was Special, was Other. I realized today, that that’s true. He was perfectly Ordinary, and thus incredibly Abnormal.”
----
Since the day he was born, since the moment the really rather cold air (one would think that the nurses wouldn’t turn the AC up so high in the maternity ward) stung his lungs, Jack had no idea he was Different, Special, or Other. His mother whispered that he was as she held him up to her breast, her hair sticky with sweat and tears and the remnants of screams of pain and curses on her husband’s genitals, but it didn’t really register. All he could think about was wheredidthewarmthgoit’scoldandreallyloudoutherewhyisitsobrightwhoisthiswomanwhat’sthatscreamingi’mhungryiwanttogohomewhyamiherewaitwhatiamohmygoddoireallyexistbutwhatisexistencewho’sthatpersonwhyisshegrabbingmeohmygodwomankeepherawayfrommeaaaaaaaaaaah. And then the nurse took him away to get the blood washed off and the thoughts stopped.
However, Jack’s mother’s proclamations of Extraordinariness never ceased. When the other boys started tinkering around with their nuclear particle reactors, Jack pushed around match-box cars. When the other boys refused to start talking until four years old, wet the bed until they were nine, and defended it as the outlet of their genius, Jack was potty-trained and could articulate almost full sentences by three years old. “Mama. Where bear. Want bear. Where Sissy. Want Sissy. Give me milk. Want milk.”
“Good,” his mother always said. “Those boys are the insufferable child geniuses who are going to end up a preparatory school doing pot behind the gym and generally perpetuating the awfulness of men.”
Jack’s mother was a feminist.
This became exceedingly obvious when he was bullied into playing Barbies with his older sister, Jen, who always made him play Barbie while she was Ken. “Mommy says we shouldn’t confine ourselves to gender roles,” she would tell him in a voice reminiscent of a really bad actor trying to learn lines. So he would push around the plastic pink car, pitch his voice, and ask, “So Ken, where should we go today?” He would dress her up in nice dresses and brush her hair, while Jen stomped her Ken doll around in the background, barking out commands like a Nazi drill sergeant.
Perhaps surprisingly to those who read psychology journals as if they were a pre-Protestant Reformation Catholic's Bible, this failed to affect his masculinity.
Ken had, however, affected Jen’s femininity, or maybe it had just been the outlet of her lack of it, but by the time Jack had started high school, his dear sister had gotten a crew cut and decided to make generous use of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. She and Jack had stopped playing with dolls years before.
His middle and high school years, nothing especially spectacular happened. He tried out for Varsity football, and ended up side-lined on JV. The next year he made outfielder on the softball team, and the year after that, ran track. Senior year, he worked part time at a fast food joint. Throughout high school, Jack pulled B’s and C’s, the occasional A. It wasn’t for a lack of smarts or lack of trying- he was of average intelligence and did just as much work as the next student. That is, if he skipped a homework assignment every now or then, or copied off someone’s test, it was okay. He never got caught.
He got accepted into a state school, known for its keggers, and he went to a few of these. Once, he brought home a drunk chick. She threw up on his shoes. They didn’t have sex.
He met a nice enough girl at one of these parties. She was kind of pretty, if you squinted a little and didn’t look directly at her nose. They got married a month after Jack graduated. Within a year, she was pregnant and staying at home, while Jack worked full time in a nondescript office building, the purpose of which no one was ever really quite sure. He had a lot of filing cabinets and memos and a boss who was definitely screwing the secretary. Jack didn’t blame the guy. She was hot and kind of a slut.
Shortly after their daughter was born, his wife got pregnant again. Between the two births, Jack started an affair with the slutty secretary. A short time after the baby boy was born, Jack and his wife split up. He visited the kids every week, and broke it off with the secretary, because she wouldn't stop talking about how amazing all of his other co-workers (male or female) were in bed.
He remarried, and this time the marriage lasted. They had a child, a girl, and she got along fairly well with her half-siblings. No unnecessary family tension or drama. His children’s childhoods were remarkably similar to his, and he allowed one manly tear to slip out at each of their graduations.
The children moved out, stopped visiting, came home for holidays, called on birthdays. He and his new wife grew apart, estranged, but they stayed together for the familiarity. She got a job, which he thought was nice, and they bought a bigger house, with rooms for the visitors they never had.
On his sixty-fifth birthday, he promptly retired.
On his sixty-sixth birthday, he died of a heart attack.
He did not declaim anything dramatic or wise with his dying breath. He was not filled with the regrets for a life unlived, or a love unloved, or a sight unseen.
The last coherent neuron signal that crossed his brain was, Well, this is odd.
His ex-wife, sister, children, ex-co-workers, and widow attend the funeral. They give quaint speeches about how he was a hard worker, and some even cried.
His sister goes up to the podium, and waves at her girlfriend from it.
“My mother always said my brother was Special, was Other. I realized today, that that’s true. He was perfectly Ordinary, and thus incredibly Abnormal.”