Chapter 1
©GeraldineBanks2025
Martin lay in bed , he was so tired, he felt like he was going through the motions of living. Would it ever stop? Did he want it just to stop? His mind went over again and again the events of the last few years. It didn’t solve anything.
Sandy, his wife, was in their en-suite bathroom putting the finishing touches to the make-up that she so expertly put on each day. Perfecting her brow shape and applying concealer, which she felt she needed more and more of as the month’s went by. Sandy felt increasingly overwhelmed trying to keep up her Media Career as well as trying to run a household and looking after the twins. She complained to Martin about being tired all the time and of having permanent black rings around her beautiful almond shape eyes.
“Just like a fucking Panda!” she’d say to him.
Martin could not see what she meant and thought she looked much better without make-up. Sandy was driven by her ambition and only half listened to him anymore. Their two World’s were so different, Martin worked in Archeological Research and Sandy was part of the ruthless cut throat World of the Media.
When, after a few glasses of wine her tongue loosened and she told him about her work , he was uneasy. It sounded petty and brutal and totally alien to the the sweet woman he used to know. He had come to realise that the work had taken it’s toll on the beautiful fun loving girl he had met and married after graduating from the University of Bathlea. One of the top Provincial Universities specialising in Sports and Residential Training for Top Athletes, fortuitously also it had a well respected Archeology Department.
As A2’s accepted for tertiary education they had been selected for fast track and expansive leisure time rewards, with plenty of time to discover themselves in preparation for the role they were being prepared for in Society.
Sandy’s sports scholarship had been a wonderful opportunity to travel the World while she competed at the highest level in her sport , athletics, indeed she held the UK record in the 100m and 200m sprint at Junior level. Together Martin and Sandy had experienced truly uplifting and life enhancing experiences as indeed the life plan for dynamic adults in their early twenties deigned. It had been a rite of passage for two intelligent and talented people.
Now Sandy and Martin were in their early thirties, with a healthy pair of twins, a still born baby and Alex whom no one now mentioned and officially did not now exist.
They had a very large mortgage which loomed each month like an impossibly high mountain to climb, but somehow each month they managed to pay. Increasingly, the strain between them was showing and although they rarely spoke about it, losing Alex and the feeling that he had been taken away from them made them question what exactly their New Society was about. Martin felt that they were heading for disaster, a marriage split, he felt out of control. Sandy avoided the subject , it was too deep for her and Martin gave up trying to speak to her. They were just going through the motions of living.
Her A2 Procreational Contractual obligations had to be fulfilled, she was running out of prime fertility time. Sandy , at heart felt it was a priority both financially ( having children was incentivised) and emotionally to start a family. In reality her longing to have a child superseded not achieving a primetime presenting job. Martin knew Sandy wanted to be a mother. State interference had worked in both their favours on this count. It was just that it hadn’t been straightforward , nothing like what they had both imagined.
As A2’s , Martin and Sandy had been assessed thoroughly , mentally and physically. Their first child being still born , was a shock to them both. The emotional trauma along with the feeling that they had “failed the system” had been hard to bear. The labour had gone on a long time, when they finally held the limp lifeless child coddled in a soft white blanket , they both cried together for their loss.
Strangers appeared from nowhere, Government people. There were a lot of questions, a moratorium almost. Sandy discussed her whole pregnancy with them, had she missed any appointments, had she fallen at any time? Sandy had to describe in every detail her pregnancy. Martin could not believe what was happening , Sandy was in tears as she said that there had been blood pressure issues, but that she had been assured that everything was fine. The labour had perhaps gone on too long, in the end they had determined that the baby had been starved of oxygen. It was no ones fault.
Martin felt the bereavement process had been badly handled. A few hours after the birth and their interrogation, they had a discussion about the arrangements for disposal of what was described as the foetal remains. They were told that trying again was the best way to overcome their grief.
They both started the process of trying for another baby a few weeks later. The Doctor’s firmly suggested that Sandy cut back on her athletic training and she complained to Martin that she felt frumpy and frustrated. Martin had tried everything to make the process of conceiving fun and not a chore , but in the end he cottoned on to the fact that Sandy was being made to feel like a brood mare.
Sandy told him that she had even asked the Counsellor for advice on inseminating herself with Martin’s sperm. Martin felt that he was being excluded , that all Sandy wanted to do was tick a box and have a child . He dutifully filled the tube in the bathroom and then Sandy used the device to inseminate herself.
“Night” Sandy had often said without so much as a cuddle or a kiss on the cheek. Martin did not know what he had done to deserve such treatment and he felt very alone. The next morning it was back to the routine of getting up , doing her make up and going to work. It was soulless. Martin knew that Sandy had not been ready emotionally to try for another child and when Sandy announced one morning at breakfast that she was pregnant, he felt guilty that he had mixed feelings, indeed , the strain of the last three months had made him feel more like a sperm donor , than a lover or a husband.
thenotsomightyom 