Member-only story
What if?
They were right to be afraid. All these years. The Men. It was as if they had foreseen The Epidemic. Nature is cruel in Her Justice and surely they must have known — She would never let their sins go unpunished.
It started slowly at first. Subtlely. Congenital anomalies in a certain population but still under the radar of most researchers. By the time they were paying attention, it was too late. The Y chromosomes in nearly every fertile male had been affected. No male child was surviving to birth.
The researchers looked long and hard for the causes — for the antidotes — for a cure. The chemicals corporations had spued into the environment was thought to be the cause. First world populations suffered in greater numbers than more remote areas. However, Earth is a single organism. She digested all the poison The Humans had poured into Her and shared it equally amongst Her streams, rivers, oceans, air, and land. The subtle toxicity didn’t kill, didn’t maim, didn’t even harm female fetuses. Nor did it affect any other creature.
Only Humans. And only Human fetuses with Y chromosomes.
The Earth had taken matters into Her Own Hands.
Women wailed and mourned their lost sons. They blamed their fathers and their father’s fathers for the careless way they had stewarded The Planet…
