The Year the Babies Stopped

I’m working on a story, she said.

What’s it going to be about? Babies.

Babies? Yeh, remember what you said

Once about how we’d all be gone if

We ever skipped a generation?

I was thinking, what if a disease

Or something more mysterious, weird,

No one knows what, just ends pregnancy,

Stops anyone from getting pregnant,

Like, anywhere on the whole planet,

All at once? There’s this month where no one

Notices, you know, and then clinics,

Like, no one’s coming for abortions,

And all the fertility treatments

Are coming up blank at the same time.

Nobody who wants to have kids can,

And no one’s pregnant on accident,

And no one knows why. Total panic.

That would be crazy. People would blame

Everyone. They’d go nuts. But you need

Characters and some kind of hope.

What’s your plot like? Is it permanent?

Oh, it’s permanent alright. No more

Babies for us. It’s like a countdown.

We’ve got who we’ve got. In ninety years,

Or a maybe a hundred, no humans.

Dust to dust. That’s a lot of story.

Yeh, I don’t know if I’ll tell it all,

But I’ve got a title. It’s, The Year

The Babies Stopped. I like it a lot.