#16 1000 Words

TITLE: Robyn's Egg
GENRE: Science Fiction


Robyn Winfield watched through the store window of Baby Universe as a clerk stocked shelves. The clerk was young and pretty, too young to have a child of her own or know much about them. Another woman, a customer, walked among the displays. She was older, in her late forties, Robyn judged. She walked tall and proud, her face placid. It was her eyes that struck Robyn as profoundly sad. They displayed no spark, no life. The woman plucked a doll off the shelf. A small smile tickled the corners of her mouth. She pulled the doll tight to her chest, and then cradled it in her arms. The woman looked outside as if she sensed someone was watching and Robyn froze, feeling like a voyeur, sure she’d been caught. When the woman turned away, Robyn started for the entrance. On her way inside, the woman with the doll brushed by on her way out.

“Ma’am! Ma’am, you can’t leave with that,” the shop girl called.

Robyn watched the young clerk rush past in chase. The clerk caught up on the sidewalk and clutched the doll by the foot. The woman turned, eyes wild, nostrils flared, mouth puckered in determination. “It’s my baby,” she snarled at the girl. She tightened her grasp and jerked the doll away, but the clerk wouldn’t release her grip. After a few more tugs, rationality returned to the woman’s face, and with it, resignation. She released the doll, tried to blink back tears, and walked away.

The clerk carried the doll back inside by an arm, dangling it loosely like a sack of onions. With her other hand she flapped her blouse in and out rapidly to draw cool air against her skin. She started when she noticed Robyn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were there.”

“Does that happen often?” Robyn asked as the clerk returned the doll to the shelf.

The girl’s face flushed pink. “Yes it does, and it’s scary every time. It’s the look in their eyes that gets me. For a second they seem like they are capable of anything. I swear they go a little insane. It’s the time before their sanity comes back that frightens me. You can never be sure if the reason they’re childless might be a psych problem.” She shook her head side to side. “Some people would do anything for a baby, even a plastic one.”

“She looked sad to me,” Robyn said.

The girl grinned sheepishly as if she realized she’d said too much. “Can I help you find something?”

“No, I’m just looking.”

The girl gave an understanding smile and returned to the counter. Robyn affected interest in baby accessories as she made her way to the infant mannequins. She picked a doll from a display and held it to her breast. The shape and weight were right, but the color was a bit off and it felt wrong – stiff and cold. She looked at the price, almost two-thousand credits. She returned the doll to the shelf.

“We have better models,” the clerk said. “That’s a low end decoy.”

“Two-thousand is the low end?”

The clerk smiled, but didn’t answer. She brought another doll from behind the counter, carried it in her arms as if it was alive, and placed it in Robyn’s arms. It was warm. Soft blond hair tickled Robyn’s arm. Eyes moved under closed lids. Its chest rose and dropped as if it was breathing, and it turned and snuggled against her. Robyn felt a tingle in her lungs and a stunned numbness inside her head. She was surprised at her reaction, and the emotions building within her. She had held a real baby only once before, her friend Kelsey’s daughter, Hope. She bent down, her face close to its hair and inhaled through her nose. It smelled chemical and sterile. The spell was broken. She realized she was holding nothing more than a piece of plastic – a clever trick filled with sensors and motors, but nothing more.

The clerk was watching expectantly. Robyn felt embarrassed. Then she understood the distinction between the two dolls and the implications. The inexpensive doll was a decoy meant to fool baby snatchers. They were intended for people who already had babies – real parents. The model in her arms was a baby substitute. It was as real as it could be, as real as it ever would be. It was meant for those who would never have children – pretenders. In the girl’s eyes, Robyn was a pretender, as unstable as any woman who had tried to flee the store with a doll. And for those few moments in which she’d succumbed to her emotions over an animated piece of plastic, the girl was right. She felt pathetic. Why had she come? She knew why. She had come to relive the moments she held her friend Kelsey’s baby in her arms pretending it was hers. She dropped the doll to the floor and rushed out of the store.



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On the platform waiting for the tube home, Robyn spotted a mother clutching her baby. She moved in behind for a better look and to be on the same car. Once inside, she took a seat facing them. The woman was young, younger than Robyn by a few years. Money: that was the only explanation. No woman that young could afford a child if her family wasn’t wealthy. If her baby was taken, it could easily be replaced. What was the old saying, no pain for the privileged?
What if at the next stop the child was plucked from its mother’s arms? If timed properly, the doors would close before anyone could react and before an image of her face could be picked up on the net. An alert would go out immediately mobilizing Security Services. But Robyn knew the city well.