Maddy's Hour

"The babies are upset! The babies are SCREAMING!"

Madeline was all out of sorts. Left to tend to the infants for an hour, she had made it to minute 36, and now the walls of her world had come tumbling down. Because of the children. Not babies, but the Davids and Celias and Stephens and Emilys. They rejected what she fed them as inferior to their mother's teat, and clobbered her hands from their bodies; their fists surprisingly strong. 

But there was no one around. No one to assist, no one to hand duties off to. Maddy was left alone with the babies for an hour, and she still had a terrifying twenty minutes remaining. She edged back towards the viewing glass. Such a ruckus was being hurled against the walls of that room. Some of the tiny faces were turning purple, little veins protruding from their skulls, threatening to pop. 

Finally Maddy broke through her hesitation and entered the last digit of her security code. The door wooshed open, and now she knew she was in for it. The screaming would not stop. She could not get it to stop. Not for all the lullabies she sang, or the soothing poems she read. The content or the quality of the recitation mattered not. They wanted Maddy gone! She had not wanted her hour. She wanted nothing to do with children. But if she was going to find a mate, she needed her resume to reflect adequate caretaking abilities. Nobody liked a slouch in any of the important Cultivation Categories: Massage, Child Rearing, Womanly Instinct, Aggressive Negotiation, Effortless Listening, Empathy, Sympathy, Moral Certitude, Love and Cooking. Men had to complete courses in Business, Social Awareness, Exploitation of Perceived Weakness, Aggressive Thought Forming and Love. And new courses not much cared for such as: Empathy, Conflict Resolution, Neutral Posture, Heatrtfelt Expression and Thoughtful Gazing. 

Maddy was one step away from failing multible courses if she could not pass this hour with some degree of success. The first 40 minutes had passed in sure, encapsulated panic. She had forgotten how to administer every kind of care she had been trained for. Now, with 20 minutes remaining, she had to produce some kind of miracle.