Babies

I wonder what my purpose here is, in life. As I walk through the hallways of my school, engage in meaningless conversations with the people who I call my friends, and strive to live- ah, that word. Live. Why must I live? What right do I have to live? I, who have killed so many creatures to get this far in life- what right do I have? Why am I entitled to all this?

From the chicken and her babies I have killed to eat my breakfast, to the teacher's life who I am squandering by taking naps in class, to the grass and bugs I am stepping on as I walk the shortcut to my house- I am essentially a murderer.

Perhaps my purpose in life if to murder. That doesn't sound too bad. I mean, there's a lot of murderers going around people, ripping out the victim's intestines and biting of chunks of their buttocks. At least the kind of murdering I do is the kind that's used to help a life live.

Which brings me again to the question of why I am entitled to such a privilege.

But whatever. I'll think about it some other time. Right now, I just want to sleep. Wait- first, I kind of want to tell you who I am.

They say that it's bad form to forwardly introduce yourself. It's much better to somehow insinuate your identity throughout your narrative. I don't care. I don't want to waste countless paragraphs for the reader to know who I am.

My name is Hera Karpusi. I am sixteen years old, and I am the kind of girl who you don't care about because I am not prone to sporadic fits of irrational anger- thus making me very uninteresting. That's okay if you don't care about me. I don't care about you either. But then again, what if I really am caring about you by thinking about you? Are you thinking about me too? I suppose you are. You should, because you're reading my narrative. Yet at the same time, you could really be searching for hints of romance, the kind shared by two sexually frustrated boys cooped up in a prison of homophobic disgust and years of friendship.

I wonder if I could provide with that sort of thing. I probably can't participate in it myself, although I wouldn't mind if I did. Sex is sex, isn't it? Doesn't matter who you're doing it with, just as long as you're enjoying yourself. Or repopulating the world.

I wonder if there's ever going to be the two-baby-per-family-unit rule imposed here in this supposedly free country, at the rate our birth population's going. I wouldn't mind. After all, babies are scary, greedy survivalists. They don't have an ounce of love or compassion in them. I'm not saying that they're not innocent. In fact, it's their innocence that turns them into scary, greedy survivalists.

Innocence shields all from love. The moment you understand the deep core of love, you are un-innocent.

But don't believe me. That's only what I hold to be true. Perhaps you believe otherwise. That's okay. Your opinions are just as unimportant as mine, so we shouldn't be fighting about how much ours differ. Instead, we should be uniting against the important opinions and try our best to take them down.

But at the same time, if the important opinions are down, doesn't that mean that our opinions have surpassed them in importance? Thus making us hypocrites? Do you want to be a hypocrite? I don't think being a hypocrite's that bad. It means that you're constantly keeping a foot in both worlds. It's not at all bad if you live a double life. It just means that you have more experience.

Ah. Speaking of experience. I have experience with stupid people. One shining example would be my grubby oaf of a neighbor, Sadik. If my purpose in life really was to have been a murderer, then my first victim would've been that idiot. Had his idiocy been converted to gold, he would've been swimming in it more than Donald Trump.

That being…does that mean Donald Trump is an idiot? I hope not. He's rich. It's kind of scary, you know, thinking that some of our most successful minds are mentally stunted.

Speaking of mentally stunted…

"Oy, wise girl! Get up your lazy ass, dammit! We've got a freaking project to do!" That's Sadik when he gets all commando.

All hail General Sadik What's-His-Last-Name. He is the new lead of the Turkish Empire- which basically means that the whole thing's going to go down overnight.

I move a bit, trying to rearrange myself into a more comfortable position. The heater, which is turned on with the sole purpose of trying to make us all into human barbecues, emits some kind of buzzing noise that lulls me even more into dreamland. Sweat drips down my neck, and my baggy gray t-shirt, the one with Cats Shall Take Over The World scribbled onto it, is plastered onto my damp back.

This. Is. Sparta- I mean, this is health class. You were probably expecting this to be history class, right? Don't worry- that's what I thought to, before the author told me of a change of plans. She says that I nailed it on the head when I asked her if she just switched it to health class to cause some unholy sexual tension.

Speaking of nailing…something soft nails me on the head.

It's probably an eraser that Sadik chucked at me. He's always throwing stuff at me to wake up.

"And you cared since when?…" I ask in reply.

Sadik's almost never cared about his grades. He assumes that he's a good enough cook to make it big through world-famous cooking shows. Even though his Turkish Delights and Turkish Coffee are to kill for, I don't think that he's too good. My fillet fish is way better. Even though the only ones who'll eat it are my cats.

"I CARED SINCE IT MEANT PISSING YOU OFF! NOW GET UP AND START WORKING!" He yowls at me.

I can picture him right now, with his dark, grizzly face with the white eye-mask. He's probably hiding crowfeet or something. I've never seen the oaf without that thing. But I can't judge. I always wear a white beret. My mother, in a strange act of motherly kindness, slapped down the beret on me before she ran out of the house on that cold day.

I never took it off since. The beret's still on my head, nesting on my messy brown hair. I interpret this beret as a sign that mother will one day come back. Just as soon as she's finished blowing her latest boyfriend's cock, she will come back.

If she doesn't, then that's okay too. I've been living on my own for three years. I can live on my own for at least two or three more years before I could bribe some adult into making a credit card for me. Then I escape.

Escape where? Don't know. Maybe back to my homeland, Greece. Even though I know next to nothing about it. I reckon I could make a living as a busboy or maybe prostitute myself for money. Don't worry. I won't get AIDs. I heard that a bunch of gamers found one of the crucial steps into curing AIDs by looking through the molecular structure of a monkey AIDs virus or something. By the time I find myself in a nunnery, the scientists probably would've found the cure.

If they didn't, then too bad.

The converse of that statement would be: if too bad, then they didn't. The inverse is if they did, then not too bad. The contra positive would be if not too bad, then they did.

Which all just points to how if they don't find the cure, then I am most probably screwed. But wait a minute…I'm already being screwed in the nunnery, so how do I get screwed even more?

Speaking of screwing…

"Dude, we're gonna be screwed if you don't wake up! Argh, you asshole, why don't you ever sleep at night?" Sadik's bellows jerk me back to reality.

I finally stir myself enough to quiet him down. The whole class is probably looking at us or something, wondering why the fugitives from the Middle East are causing another disturbance. Lord knows that this classroom needs another disturbance. There's already the combination of Little Lord Fauntleroy, Mr. Superman, and the cheese-eating-surrender-monkey. The trio makes as much noise as an incoming freight train.

And then there's tomato-face. She's a girl you'd all probably find interesting. She's the type of girl who yells as loudly as Sadik and throws a lot of punches- not that I'm saying that she's capable of taking her own in a fight. Far from the truth, now you think about it. Unless you count Antonio as her strength. Then she's plenty strong.

Speaking of which, it's become some kind of school legend by now, on how Sadik tried to kidnap tomato-face. He said that it was for a prank. But rather than believe that halfwit, I believe in Freud. If Freud really is right, then Sadik has a disturbing and very unrequited crush on a girl who's face has the ability to turn the color of a tomato.

It's obvious that it's unrequited. One look at how much bitching she does to Antonio leaves plenty of clues as to who she wants to have babies with.

Oh. Babies. Ha. What a coincidence. That's our project. Right. That reminds me- I've made a new record. I've been successfully ignoring Sadik for at least twelve minutes. My previous record was nine, when I pretended to be vomiting from the scones that Little Lord Fauntleroy offered me.

"Babies." I say. "What do you need my help for…and it better be just help. I'm not interested in doing the whole thing myself."

Sadik jumps at least ten meters into the air. Ooh, big shock- the pseudo-narcoleptic Hera has finally woken up from her beauty sleep to grace a lowly commoner as himself with a reply.

"As if! I'm probably gonna be the one who does the whole thing! All you'd probably do is sleep. That's all you do, isn't it? Just snoozing with your mangy little fleabags."

"Hey, hey, back off. My kitties are way better than your flea-bitten face."

"Shut up, messy-hair!"

"Messy hair? That's the best a genius such as yourself can come up with?"

"Gah-urgh- whatever. I'll let this go for today 'cuz we really need to work on this damn project! Aw, dang- thirty minutes passed! We wasted time, thanks to you!"

"You're welcome. So what do we need to do? I know it's something about babies. Mhm." I pause for a bit, before continuing, "Maybe we have to find out about the passage of the ovaries?…"

"Ew!" Sadik blasts off. "Only an unhinged pervert like you would think of that! Wait." His dark eyes narrow. "Does this mean…y-you…you don't know either on what we're supposed to do for the project?"

"Bingo. Don't you remember? I was catching up on my sleep."

"Awwwwww, damn! Now we're really screwed! I was counting on you to pay attention for us!"

I blink. Oh. Whoops. Okay. I guess we'll just have to ask the teacher.

"Hey, lice-head," I call to Sadik to catch his attention. "Just ask the teacher."

"W-what? I can't do that! I don't want to!" He replies, simultaneously showcasing his intimate affair with exclamation marks.

"Why not?" I ask.

"Because I don't want to. You do it!" Sadik is now repeatedly poking my head to try and provoke me.

It isn't going to work. I've withstood a stab from a knife when I accidentally made some conversation with that Ivan guy. If I could just keep on talking about the meaning of life with some guy with Russia while there's a knife impaled on my arm, I'm pretty sure I can easily ignore the Turkish dude's finger-pokes of doom.

"Sadik, Hera- aren't we supposed to be working on our project?" A shy, slightly awkward voice makes its way into my ear.

For the first time in my life, I jolt up from my desk and snap my eyes awake. Ah. This is where things go good. Enter my classmate, Kiku Honda.

Short, thin, Asian- not much to say about him. With his customary straight bangs and brown eyes, he looks like the ideal Japanese student.

But I like him. Maybe even love him. But I doubt that my love for him runs too deep. If there's a choice between my life and his, I'd probably choose my own.

Who am I kidding? I'd sacrifice myself in a heartbeat. He is humanity's next great, big thing. With Kiku around, there's going to be more cat-enthusiasts. He promised me. He promised me once that he'll make the world a better place for both cats and humans alike.

That's good enough to make me slightly infatuated with him.

"Oh, Kiku." I smile at him.

Kiku smiles at me back, the edges of his lips curling upwards slightly. He's about to say something with that wonderfully shy voice of his, until an oaf stumbles in with his own hasty words.

"Yo, Kiku! You're in our group! Didn't know that! I'm glad you are, though! I thought I was going to be stuck with this loser here." Sadik bursts into a fit of annoying chuckles.

"You stole the words right out of my mouth. Kiku, I'm sorry for this fool. Maybe we should go to the teacher and tell him to take Sadik out of the group?" I quickly jump in.

Kiku closes his eyes for a second, before he rubs his head. "I'm actually quite glad that we're all in the same group. But we must try and finish this project with as much accuracy and efficiency as we can. It would not do if we fail this."

"Exactly! Just as I was saying to this lame-brain, we need to get started on the project!" Sadik whips around to give me the evil eye.

I shrug. Okay. Besides the lame-brain part, it all sounds good to me. But one problem.

"We would get started on the project…but how do we start? And what is our objective?…I know it's something about babies…but that's all I know."

Kiku replies, "We are to take care of a baby for the next few days, recording and taking notes on it. We do not pass if our baby cries too much." Looks like someone paid attention. Whew. Sadik and I are both saved.

Oh. Wait. That project. I know about it. It's what they do in every stereotypical high-school based series. But I'm glad I'm in a group with Kiku. He should be able to stop me and Sadik from bickering too much and not torture the baby.

I turn my head to look at Sadik. Wonder how Boy Wonder's faring.

Not so well. For some reason, he's freezed up and his face pales into an unhealthy sheen.

"What's wrong? Scared that Chuckie's out to get you?" I ask.

Sadik doesn't answer. Instead, in a strangled voice, he asks, "Where's. The. Baby?"

Kiku blinks. No emotion flickers across his usually blank face. Then, almost as if he can read Sadik's mind, he gives a very strange reply.

"No. Sadik, I'm afraid that I might have to withhold you from holding the baby. You are still unstable from last time."

Okay. So Sadik has a possibly insane approach towards babies. What else is new? That he's not a pedophile?

But then again, I wonder what's behind this whole thing about Sadik and babies…I probably shouldn't ask Kiku about it. Knowing him, the answer will never be able to be drawn out. So, following Galileo's way of trying out experiments, I do the obvious.

"Then, Kiku, can I hold the baby? I just want to see it…"

"Okay. But please take care in not dropping it."

Soon, a hefty little body, one that's as ugly as sin, is dropped into my arms. I carefully watch Sadik's eyes track my every movement as I pretend to rock the baby around and sing it to sleep. Then, as soon as I see the apprehensive look in Japan's eyes fade away into a calm lull of security, I whack the baby against Sadik's face.

Biggest understatement of the year: Sadik goes ballistic.