Nature Future Conditional

The story behind the story: The egg

This week, S B Divya makes her debut in Futures with her story The egg. Here she kindly offers some insight into the inspiration behind the tale. If you’d like to find out more about her activities, you can catch up with her on her blog. As ever, you should read the story before reading this post.

Writing The egg

The story of The egg began while I was thinking about artificial wombs and how they might reshape near-future society. Most of the discussions I’ve read on this topic are female centric, which is natural considering that women are the sole bearers of human wombs; however, the impact on men (specifically, on fathers) should also be considered. The egg focuses on what it might mean to one man in particular.

I started with the question: how might an artificial womb change men’s lives? This led to a couple more questions. What would a man do if he were in control of a pregnancy that he wasn’t sure he wanted? And, what circumstances might put him in that situation? It’s a politically charged topic so I wanted to explore it from an intimate, immediate point-of-view. The plot of The egg evolved from one possible set of answers to these questions.

The characters and their motivations came from a more personal source: my friends, Kevin and Connie. They were two of the liveliest, most fun-loving and easy-going people that I knew, and they were both under the age of 30. At the time I wrote the story, in the summer of 2013, Kevin had been ill with a rare form of cancer and was on experimental medication.

Kevin and Connie’s situation shaped the heart of The egg. Unlike many couples of their age, they weren’t looking forward to a long and happy life with children. Not that having children is necessary for a fulfilling life — it certainly isn’t — but I felt a wrongness in their being deprived of the choice. An artificial womb would restore that for a couple like Kevin and Connie, as well as for many others who have trouble with pregnancy. These feelings wove together with the earlier ideas, and the outcome was this story.

In a twist of fate, I found out that Nature was accepting this story two days after I attended Kevin’s memorial service. He died on 17 October 2014. I hope that this story serves as a small tribute to his life.

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