Confessions of a Heretofore Unsentimental Cynic: or, Why I Can't Read the News Anymore, Ever
In the unlikely event that I could consign myself to some manner of service after my death; if I could gain a supernatural power with which to touch humankind after I have shuffled off this mortal coil... in short, if any of those ridiculous, illogical, sentimental, saccharine stories of afterlife, time-leaping, and in general the revisiting of the material world and its inhabitants by the 'spiritual essences' of the dearly departed, were remotely in the realm of the not-loony in my personal cosmology, then I would apply posthaste for a position on the Transcendental Wayback Machine, and here is what I would do:
I would catalog every instance in human history of a child suffering at the hands of those who should have cared for it (and I do not limit this to parents or other presumed caretakers, but to all the members of its immediate society and any able-bodied adult with a fucking beating heart who happened to be in the vicinity or had knowledge of the mistreatment), and I would make my metaphysical way to that child, across time and space and innumerable astral planes or whatever crap there is in that imaginary world, and I would hold it, talk to it, comfort it, tell it that someone, somewhere, sometime in the past or future as the case may be, but SOMEONE in this 'verse cares for them individually, and loves them, and that they are safe now, never to be hurt again but rather nurtured and held for all time in a mother's arms.
I would install upon my incorporeal self a plethora of virtual arms with which to keep that promise, and countless warm chests with beating hearts, enough to welcome infants exposed shortly after birth and left to die, the victims of wars and other social unrest of petty adults, children born or sold into slavery, children abandoned or abused by their parents and subsequently their society, orphans as young as six years old exploited by soulless industrial enterprises, working unpaid in freezing, filthy, incredibly dangerous factories for up to 19-hour shifts, beaten, chained, tortured, and fed barely enough to survive, an 8-month-old beaten to death to 'toughen' it up, a beautiful two-year-old girl beaten, tortured, and violently murdered for 'learning manners' too slowly during a day-long cram session wherein she tried unsuccessfully to stop the onslaught by reaching for her mother and saying "I love you," and all the millions of other children whose torture doesn't make the news because they survive and the parents don't get caught.
I'm not a terribly sentimental person. I hate commercials with kids in them, trying to play on what is for some reason perceived as a universal child-philia. I hate when kids try to win cuteness points. On some level, I don't even really like kids much. Not even yours. Not even mine, sometimes, while we're being honest. But what would I do if I died and, to my great surprise and disbelief, I was asked to become the patron saint of somebody-something and had the opportunity and the responsibility to provide eternal service to the living? I would momentarily consider the merits of empowering and inspiring writers and philosophers and artists and inventors and innovators in every field of art and science, spurring on creative greatness - something powerfully dynamic and alluring, something that would keep me in constant contact with the greatest minds in history. And then, my friends, I would transform myself into an enormous spectral breast and chase down these pitiable rugrats for all eternity, scooping up every last one of them and giving them their due share of the tender care, unconditional love, physical and emotional security, and basic human dignity that every child rightfully should enjoy.
I would catalog every instance in human history of a child suffering at the hands of those who should have cared for it (and I do not limit this to parents or other presumed caretakers, but to all the members of its immediate society and any able-bodied adult with a fucking beating heart who happened to be in the vicinity or had knowledge of the mistreatment), and I would make my metaphysical way to that child, across time and space and innumerable astral planes or whatever crap there is in that imaginary world, and I would hold it, talk to it, comfort it, tell it that someone, somewhere, sometime in the past or future as the case may be, but SOMEONE in this 'verse cares for them individually, and loves them, and that they are safe now, never to be hurt again but rather nurtured and held for all time in a mother's arms.
I would install upon my incorporeal self a plethora of virtual arms with which to keep that promise, and countless warm chests with beating hearts, enough to welcome infants exposed shortly after birth and left to die, the victims of wars and other social unrest of petty adults, children born or sold into slavery, children abandoned or abused by their parents and subsequently their society, orphans as young as six years old exploited by soulless industrial enterprises, working unpaid in freezing, filthy, incredibly dangerous factories for up to 19-hour shifts, beaten, chained, tortured, and fed barely enough to survive, an 8-month-old beaten to death to 'toughen' it up, a beautiful two-year-old girl beaten, tortured, and violently murdered for 'learning manners' too slowly during a day-long cram session wherein she tried unsuccessfully to stop the onslaught by reaching for her mother and saying "I love you," and all the millions of other children whose torture doesn't make the news because they survive and the parents don't get caught.
I'm not a terribly sentimental person. I hate commercials with kids in them, trying to play on what is for some reason perceived as a universal child-philia. I hate when kids try to win cuteness points. On some level, I don't even really like kids much. Not even yours. Not even mine, sometimes, while we're being honest. But what would I do if I died and, to my great surprise and disbelief, I was asked to become the patron saint of somebody-something and had the opportunity and the responsibility to provide eternal service to the living? I would momentarily consider the merits of empowering and inspiring writers and philosophers and artists and inventors and innovators in every field of art and science, spurring on creative greatness - something powerfully dynamic and alluring, something that would keep me in constant contact with the greatest minds in history. And then, my friends, I would transform myself into an enormous spectral breast and chase down these pitiable rugrats for all eternity, scooping up every last one of them and giving them their due share of the tender care, unconditional love, physical and emotional security, and basic human dignity that every child rightfully should enjoy.