Smart Dragons, Foolish Elves by Alan Dean Foster

Author:Alan Dean Foster
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Humor in Literature, Fantasy Fiction, Fantastic Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction, American, English, General, Short Stories
Published: 2011-09-03T01:52:54+00:00

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A blessed event! Will it be a boy or a girl? Shall I knit booties and crave pickles? What are the rules in such circumstances? Man Expecting, tabloids would hawk.

Hubby Takes Turn—Mom Stays Mum. Men’s faces grow pale; women guffaw. They have to be carried; their deep laughter overcomes them. The rich chortling echoes down the hallways and explodes in amazed whispers. 1 sit there, stomach twisting; I am not amused.

Ectopic pregnancy, they chant. Parthogenetic reproduction, reverse ovarian drift. Not impossible, not odd. Perfectly explainable. Nature not putting all her eggs in one basket. Liber oparous hominem. Homo anticipatus. Their professional mumbo-jumbo permits them to gloss over the miraculous with blase jargon, but I am not fooled. They are staggered and still reeling from the blow; all their fancy words are just a mask for their fright. I loosen my belt thoughtfully; I’ve got love in my tummy.

How do I tell her? Am I going to be a father or a mother? Will she be suspicious, suspect another woman? Is she willing to accept this child? My God, suppose she refuses—am I prepared to sacrifice this flesh of my flesh, say yes to the silver knife and sucking tube? Not with my child you don’t!

Then again, this could be more than a mild disruption in my life: by what right would the church and others decide what I will do with my body?

Thoughts avalanche faster than I can cope: what about my job, my career? Is it all right for me to work, can 1 get paternity leave?

I wonder if my medical plan will cover the hospital bills.

And will my dry breasts blossom in time to suckle my child?

First she is amused, then startled, then shocked. As she slowly believes, her emotions do a tango. The lawyer’s cool YES SIR THATS MY 171

surfaces, mixed with spousely concern. Unbelief returns; she cannot grasp the truth. Jealously. Confusion. Love.

Fear. Joy. Humor. Concern. Doubt. She proves equal to the situation; she is no more capable of accepting it than I am.

We sit and think.

A strange, loving look suffuses her features. Never before has she been gentle in this way. It is a deep loving we make late that evening, almost irrelevant to pleasure. 1 hold her close and weep.

My belly is swelling; we have abandoned tobacco, alcohol, aspirin. Loose trousers hide my precious paunch; even so, I get comments—Too much beer, old fellow?

Better get to work on those pounds, boy.

I banter back and look chagrined. Conveniently, the clinic has maintained my delicate condition entre nous and sub rosa and no doubt oy vey iz mir, but I still fear someone will discover me.

Is it embarrassment or the inevitable pursuit by the media and fanatics that encourages my furtiveness? It is not yet too late for this all to turn out a bad dream, or at least a creative tumor.

No one could be more loving, more supportive than that bright-eyed, red-haired, long-nosed lawyer who is my wife.

“The entire legal establishment is prepared to defend you.

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