One - Chapter 1
#1 of One
One
Chapter 1
A Boy
It all began, with the birth of a boy, a feline boy in fact. His small body was aligned with brown fur, still wet with the liquids that had once sustained his life. His eyes bright blue and still nowhere near close to opening. Little paws reached up from the wet towel on the floor, the mother having been rushed into giving birth had little time to prepare for the new life that made it's way into her home, the first of many surprises to await her this day.
If he had been able to open his eyes at that point, he would have seen things that would have been ordinary enough. A small condo with a view of the city below, twenty-six floors above the commotion of a busy work day. The living room he was born in would have seemed especially nicely decorated, the light white paint along the walls, that accented a silver themed room. The long black leather, half crescent shaped couch that sat in the center of the room, in front of a glass topped silver table would have been a common sight in many of the condos in that building.
To some, his birth would not seem such an unusual event, with exception to the suddenness in which he forced himself into this world. In fact most societies would consider it commonplace, others would even welcome it. Why then, should it have been that his mother would look upon him with confusion, then with distraught? Why would it have been that, his birth would bring her such terrible grief? Why is it that, in less than two minutes after his birth, that his mother, would so hurriedly make a phone call to the only person she knew she could tell? She had no idea.
Some would have called it hysteria. Others may have even questioned her mental state at the time. All would have agreed that the birth of a boy would be a joyous event for a young mother. Yet these people, these ideas, were no longer part of this society. No, these were ideas long discarded. How long? No one really knows for sure. All the stories talk of a great plague long ago, from the ashes of which was born a utopian society. There were no more stories of the time before.
To all who lived now, the words boy, man and male were all unknown. Indeed, if anyone on the street were to be asked of any of these terms, they might look at the inquisitor in confusion then go back to minding their own affairs. There were no boys, only girls. That is all this society had ever known. The entire population, from the newest newborn, to the oldest elder, was all female.
The world before this one might have called such a world impossible, but to those living in this time, such an idea of two mothers was commonplace. In fact, the word father had not even been uttered since the ages long forgotten. To those that currently lived, this was their reality. This was normal. Girls and women were the ones who inherited the earth, and their legacy is the one that now prevailed.
As one mother lay on the floor, panting and gasping for air, her body weak from the effort of birth, with her arms now tightly holding the baby boy in her arms, the other waited desperately for the person at the other end to pick up. A soft voice calmly responded back from the other end, clearly much more composed than either of the mothers.
"Hello, Dr. Turner's office." The voice spoke with calm, professional composure, even as the mother who responded did not!
"We've just had a baby! Sheila! She just gave birth!" The mother panted gasping for air, a mild hysteria in her voice, concern not only for her wife, but for the newborn as well.
"We'll send an emergency vehicle unit to the premises shortly, just stay calm, relax and tend to your wife. Lucy, I know you better than to be so distraught over something like this." The cool voice on the other end continued to stay calm, after all she'd worked with the woman on the other end for years, even loved her for a time, why should he have not been calm, especially in a time such as this?
"N... no! Please... no doctors. I... I can't be sure about what's going on. I dialed your direct line for a reason. Please, come alone. We'll be fine here, this is something you need to see for yourself." Even as the light delirium began to quiet, her words were no less reassuring to the woman on the other end.
"What do you mean?" The voice responded again, not about to turn down a request form a dear friend, but still seeking a rational thought.
"I'll explain when you get here... I know you'll know what to do. I don't want to believe it... I can't. I need you to tell me I'm not going crazy, and tell me my baby is normal." She pleaded into the receptor, tears although invisible to the woman on the end, poured down her calico furred cheeks.
"Okay... ten minutes." With that, the phone clicked. The next moments dragged by agonizingly. As the young cub nuzzled into his still exhausted birth mother, his other mother paced about, waiting for her friend to appear. When those knocks finally came, she thought she could hear her salvation knowing with them, a break from the endless wait, and with all hope an end to her uncertainty.
"Lucy! What's so urgent? You should be with Sheila, and I should be here with a team of doctors." She spoke frankly, but still professionally, even as she swelled with concern for all in the room. Her white doctor's coat had hardly had time to be thrown onto her lithe, lightly busted lapin frame, showing the urgency at which she'd left her desk.
"Please! Look at my child! Tell me that she is normal! Leela, tell me my child is okay!" Lucy gasped, raspy in her throat, still unable to comprehend what she'd seen.
"Okay let me see the cub." Swiftly the child was out of the arms of her birth mother, his secret now clear and obvious, much more so to the doctor than to the disbelieving mother.
"Well... this is... a first." All Leela could do for a while was stare in the same disbelief that had taken Lucy, but she had already comprehended the situation fully, it should not have been possible after all, not if what she'd learned about reproduction in their species, in fact all sentient species that currently resided on the planet was true.
"This... is a boy!" Indeed, her fascinated claw was already examining his small sheath, and fuzzy scrotum underneath. "Sheila, Lucy, you have a healthy, as far as I can see, baby boy."
Sheila could only sigh a little before she slipped off to sleep, her body more concerned with rest after her intense, sudden labor. When she would finally wake though, she would be as informed as Lucy as to what had happened this day. Together, they would both try to decide what to do.
He would surely never be accepted as he was, yet what could they do rather than simply raise him like any other normal child? After all, neither of the women had ever considered that they'd have anything but a female, to them both it hadn't not even been possible, a thought that they never would have had. Yet, there he was, the child of two loving feline parents, born into a world that had made him unique. Perhaps it was for that reason, they called him Ein. In the past it had once stood for being unique, one. The name suited him, and even as he slept nuzzled at his mother's teat, unaware that he was so true to his namesake.
Leela had seen to it that the records of the child's birth were filed accordingly, including "her" name. There was no option to even list a child as anything but a girl, as in fact nothing had existed in memory that was anything but. To the world, he would be a female. Leela would of course take care of all of his childhood medical exams, and none would be the wiser as to the truth. It was a tightly knit conspiracy, set up to draw as little attention as possible to his differences. So long as no one ever saw him naked, all three adults involved felt safe that, for now, they could keep this secret among themselves.
All his parents could do now was let him sleep, both gazing upon him, no longer with confusion, but with love. He was their first and only child, and they would love him just as if he'd been a girl. He was unique, and as Leela had thought, perhaps he was unique for a reason. That day, the sun set on a very different place than it had risen to. That morning, it had been a sea of females, that evening though, it set on a family changed by one child, one child, who would change the world.