I was trained, I think, to have a lot of kids, a cache, as it were, for the world to consume, or, perhaps, to protect from the world, but who can do that when one is shielding his own face from the ceaseless blows? Maybe I wasn’t trained, but it was modeled for me. I liked the idea of having many children, but I wasn’t particularly enthralled with the idea of it. Nevertheless, when I met a girl who expressed a desire to have many children, a quiver full of arrows, as it were, with which to conquer the world, standing strong in the ceaseless battle, well, who can resist? So I married her.

We snapped into a template quite quickly, into career obligations (we thought they were obligations). The institutions of this present evil age foster themselves as protectors and guides, and they eject a newly married couple of individuals into the fray with promises of further protection and guidance, but when you look back at the fortresses of the institutions of your trust, you see that they are being assailed without cessation, and if you have the will to look closely, you see that the worst of the flames are being set from those whose charge is the maintenance and operation of the institutions. And so you are demoralized. They said “career,” and I with the wife of my youth said, “okay,” then chafed, then fell away, and we found ourselves abandoned. This is a template. It happens predictably to a subset of human beings (oh, how I hate that designation; what are we? Are we human beings? Aren’t we a communion, man and wife?) every single day. And the outcry goes up into outer space, swallowed by the beepings of exploring satellites and the wind of the sun. Will Jupiter turn his eye upon us in mercy? The bloated god will only flatulate and turn away.

We fell when we fell away. “Just desserts!” cried out the men. “You have become to us as rebels.”

“But we are your own flesh and blood!”

We had two children at the time, and circumstances convinced us that two was enough. Those two would help us limp along to the end, whence they, perhaps, according to hope, could bound away. This is also common.

But we were expected to have more children. By whom? Ghosts, I should think. Spirits and unseen powers, bidding us to resume that good work, as it is also enjoyable. Career had failed us (and we certainly failed it) and progress was in ruins, so why not flex ourselves, as man and wife, and shatter the template?

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