The House That Babies Built

Adapted from Neil Gaiman’s “Babycakes”

One day, the trees went away.

They didn’t really tell us they would. We just woke up and they weren’t there. No trace as to why they left or where they went or how they even uprooted themselves. They did not leave seeds for other trees to grow or stick a note on our doors to say goodbye. They left their spots holed and broken.

People were crying and calling the police and the community church. Classes were cut off for a week and no one went to work. We were horrified at the idea of trees leaving. But we were more worried because the world might get too hot and we’d run out of paper and there’d be nothing to shade us from the ultraviolet. Eventually, the color green was transferred from the dictionary to history books because it no longer existed. Brown was attributed to soil and human flesh.

Someone pointed out that just because they left us, it wouldn’t have to mean that we should change the way we live. The trees just weren’t there anymore. But the world was still here. So it all went perfectly fine. Eventually, we got used to their inexistence. We returned to our usual lives and did what we always have done. Nobody cares about trees anyway.

After all, we could still plant babies.

Babies are irrational, do not think, and only react to biological impulses. So we planted them.

In quite a very short time, the babies grew into the most beautiful and greenest flora anyone had ever seen. They sprouted leaves in place of hair and they became firm, yet still soft on the outside. They grew tall fast.

But we weren’t satisfied.

So we did what we always have done.

The babies bore the most luscious baby fruit. They were as supple as the babies and we ate them. Their red, thick juice flowed in sweetness on our mouths.

When the babies were tall and old enough, we cut them. We used chainsaws that bit into the babies’ skin, gnawing into their bones, cracking and eventually breaking them. The impact was strong and the bones shattered inside. The babies squealed and squirmed and screamed and wailed and crunched in anguish and did everything to voice out their pain.

But the chainsaw muffled their cries for help.

They were babies. Nobody cared about them.

The babies became paper and paper was wasted.

The babies were burned and they would scream like a lonely wolf on a full moon. Some were alone on the mountains and floods washed them away. They would cry harder than the rain. The babies were vandalized. They inhaled our pollution. They became our houses and chairs and tables.

Yes. The world was normal again. It was perfectly fine.

But.

Just yesterday, the babies went away.

Oh, don’t worry. We’ll think of something. We are good at that. That’s what makes us better than other organisms, better than trees or babies. We do what we always have done.

We’ll think of something.