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                      >> "Why Can't I Be A Crack Baby?" <<

                                by -> Backwash

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Chris was a typical angst teen.  His parents named him Chris to confuse
 him about his sexuality.  He was sure of it because all his anti-heroes had
 told him his parents were evil.  He was watching television, doing his best
 to try to hate himself, almost to the point that he actually did, when he
 saw a boy on television born without arms or legs.  He gazed into the boy's
 eyes as his mind recoiled a bit at the thought of actually having such
 misfortune, when he had an idea.

      "If I was born without arms or legs, or I was a mongoloid, think how
 miserable I could be!  Then all of my friends would accept me, and maybe I
 could get some typical shallow girl to fuck me in a rare moment of empathy.
 I may be far too weak to take a stand, but with nature on my side, latching
 onto the world's extremely short attention span, think what I could do!"

      He realized it just wouldn't work if he just cut off his own limbs,
 though.  He'd become too much of a miscreant, even to his warped culture, so
 he went to scream at his parents, which is what he always did when he was
 frustrated.

      "MOM!  Why the fuck didn't you smoke or drink or do crack you goddamn
 whore!  Look at me!  I have all my limbs and I have average intelligence!
 What's your problem?  Are you trying to sabotage my social life again?!"

      His mom had learned to tune him out by now and had given up.  She gave
 a reflexive, disdaining nod of the head, and went back to reading her
 romance novels.  Chris continued to rant.

      "Don't you understand?  I could have been somebody!  The world could
 have been mine if only I didn't have the mental or physical ability to grasp
 it!"

      His mom couldn't ignore him any longer.  "Look," she said, trying to
 disguise her contempt for what her son had become.  "You're a wonderful
 person; you are special and you underplay that all the time.  Why do you
 need to be some freak for that?"

      Chris was cynical, as usual.  "Like thinking for yourself ever got
 anyone anywhere!  You have to be a genetic freak or be rich to make a
 difference now!  I don't even have any kind of mental imbalance!"

      Chris went back to his room, pouted a bit, and tried to foster his
 misanthropy, still gazing at his painfully present arms and legs.  "Damn
 it," he said with utter bitterness.  "Why did I have to be so perfect?  Why
 can't people like me because I'm handsome and dumb?"  He began to swear as
 loudly as he could against the reverse eugenics that kept him from being
 cool, when all of a sudden, a heavenly figure appeared.

      The reality of it all hit Chris all at once, although apathy was bred
 into him well enough not to be knocked back by the realization that his 
 abandonment of religion to be cool might have just backfired on him.  

      "Chris, I'm here to help you.  I can turn back time and give you your
 wish, if you are sure you want this."

      "Puh," Chris spoke in a typically surly tone.  "I don't need you
 questioning my damn wants.  I know better.  Give me what you got, I have
 better things to do."

      There was a blinding flash of nothingness.  As Chris regained
 conciousness, he was laying on the floor with 4 stumps on each end of him,
 as his mind slowly uncoiled from what had happened.

      "Yes!" he exclaimed in his head.  "I've arrived, I'm in malcontent
 paradise, I can garner whatever empathy hasn't been sucked out of the world,
 I'm a god, I'm...."  Suddenly, as he flashed into his new reality, his mom
 came in and picked him up as he gurgled happily.  After all, he didn't know
 anything else anymore, and his life was now stress-free.  As his mom walked
 away with the now infantile and gimpish Chris, she said to his father, "He
 almost looks like he has a glimmer of intelligence today.  It's odd, like he
 could almost speak."

      Chris did do his part to help his culture, though.  His picture
 appeared on numerous anti-drug pamphlets and angered many fellow teens, who
 felt it was "crap, made up by old people, they just don't understand us."  

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    * (c) HoE publications.  HoE #170 -- written by Backwash -- 12/26/97 *