Nature’s Matter

A son is born, wheezing air out of his lungs as he struggles to breathe through the empty air. The woman, now mother who lays weakened by his conception on the plastic ground that surrounds her but not only her. The plastic surrounds all. Plastic walls and plastic cover, so they sheltered in a plastic mountain that was home to those that could survived a wasteland. The man, now father holds his son in a lax grip. The baby did not cry, it was pained pants of air. The father locked a gaze at his son, but the emotion was not clear on his face. The mother and father were both skinny, deadly so but their chest blocky and wide with blushed skin that matched the newborn. 

The mother raises her arms for her child, to gaze at his form. A baby with wide ribs and a stiff figure, the only way one would know that he was alive was by the struggling breaths he takes to fill his lungs. She looked at him with eyes of wonder, holding him close while caressing his eyes in hopes he would view her. The father looked at the sight with no emotion.  

"You shoul'nt get too attached", the father said in a low grave accent with his words slurred and pronounced. He slowly moves towards her inching towards the baby. The mother tightens her grip and moves closer to the walls with what little strength she has.  

She puts her face into the hair of her child and speaks in a soft growl, "I am not gibigg him away".  

They locked eyes and it was as if two predators had stumbled upon a single prey. 

"You can't take care of it, uh, Gibe it away 'n webuh'll be eatigg f' each sun rise 'n sun set." The father tries to reason with the mother, but she stands her ground. Now leaning on the plastic wall that surrounds them, holding her baby in one hand and the makeshift knife she had hidden in her hair revealing it. 

"Why wudd dey want a child? Anodeh moud t' feed, uh uh uh uh, Dabid blease...When he is old, he will be a help t' us!", The mother defends her child from David. He looks at the knife and moves away. 

"Okay Marie, but he is yer responsibility." David leaves the plastic cave. It was something they had done after finding out that an area in the plastic mountain had melted from the harsh red blazon sun. It was to keep them safe for the birth and because they did not want to clean their main resting place.  

Marie relaxed as she watched David walk away, putting her knife down. She rips a piece of her ragged clothing, covering the baby who fusses at the movement. She sits down with her baby boy in her lap and grabs her knife. She smiles when she turns to the baby realizing he has opened his eyes.  

Her gaze softens, "Oh, My Da'ban I wuddn't let them take you. Dey wudd takeyou 'n cut you 'n change you t' somedigg else. Somedigg not natural. We are beigg pushid and we habe t' endure. Dey want you but dey can't habe you. Your suffehigg will sabe us." Marie traces her knife with one hand as she caresses the cheek of Da'van with the next. She places the knife ontop of the baby and grabs a metal stick. She grabs the knife again and beings to crave into it, the name her child.  

"Da'van", You can almost hear the mild wonder in her grainy voice. She slips the knife into the baby's cloth. 

While this is happening, the sun reaches its peak. The melting of the plastic mountain starts at random areas sometimes striking the same place twice. Marie feels the heat growing rapidly, but by the time she realizes what is happening, the plastic softens as the ground becomes difficult to stay on without sinking, it becomes almost sticky. Marie quickly stands up shielding her now crying baby from the heat. She sprints to the exit but just as she was making it out, a hotter piece of molten plastic drips onto her back and she lets out a sharp shriek. She buries the pain down and quickly maneuvers her way to the other cave.  

When she gets there, she quickly locates David and gives him the baby as she falls to the side. The cave was the same as the last, a little bigger with more trinkets and gadgets but a hole all the same. David looks on in mild shock, he looks at Marie's shoulder and back at the baby. He calms down, his face moving to show blankness. He bends down to put the baby back into Marie's hands, turning her around to pick at the plastic that was beginning to dry on her skin. 

"He is yer responsibility." David says as he quietly tends to Marie as she cries loudly cradling her baby.