Eternal Youth For Baby Boomers Spawns A Horrendous Disease

The coolest near - hereafter story I ’ve read recently is now useable online , as a gratuitous download . Maureen McHugh ’s account “ audience : On Any Given Day ” wraps genetic engine room and next youth subcultures into a story that ’s alternately funny and super - disturbing . The tale ’s faux - interview data format and weird piddling hyperlinks add to the notion that you ’re consuming a piece of medium - eminent cultivation from a future existence where genetic meddling has led to some horrendous side effects , include a unexampled sexually transmitted disease . spoiler ahead .

In “ Any Given Day , ” reporter from National Public Internet ( which has replaced NPR ) interviews a adolescent in 2018 , and the copy has the feeling of a real interview from All Things Considered , including little musical segues . In McHugh ’s next world , the Baby Boomers are all getting into their 70s and are desperately avail themselves of genetic treatment to restore their lost youth and gain a second chance at being kids . ( But you could always tell a rejuvenated Boomer , because they ’re not immature on the inside . )

Our teenage hero has had sex activity with a Boomer named Terry , and then compress a weird new Venus’s curse . It seems “ foul batches of genetic material associated with the telemerase ” used in Terry ’s rejuvenation therapy has converted itself into a proto - computer virus call pv414 . And now the adolescent , Emma , has had to take grueling treatments to guard against potential Cancer and “ haired jail cell leukemia . ” Even after she ’s pronounced cure , she ’s incessantly worried about start disturbed and feel all slowed down and conservative . It ’s as if Terry , in his selfish pursuance to stay young another 50 years , has steal Emma ’s youth inadvertently . Emma , meanwhile , belongs to a unexampled young person subculture called “ Culture Freaks , ” which strain to borrow from specific non - white cultures , like India or Egypt , as much as potential .

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This being NPI , whenever we get to a particularly vivid skein of Emma ’s memories , we suddenly thin to a piece of music of Baby - Boomer easy listening music , as in this section , where Emma recite lose her virginity to an older teen :

Emma : I was fourteen when I lose my virginity . I was drunk , and there was this guy make Luis , he was yield me these boozing that savor like melon , this green hooey that everybody was drinking when they could get it . He say he really liked all my Egyptian stuff and he kept playing with my slave watch bracelet . The bangle has chain that go to rings you wear on your quarter round , your midway finger , and your gang finger . “ Can you be my slave ? ” he kept asking and at first I thought that was funny because he was the one bringing me crapulence , you be intimate ? But we keep kissing and then we fail into the bedroom and he felt my tit and then he wanted to have sex . I feel as if I ’d led him on , you know ? So I did n’t say no .

I find out him again a couple of times after that , but he did n’t pay much attention to me . He was old and he did n’t go to my school . I rue it . I wish it had been a petty more special and I was really too immature .

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Sometimes I thought that if I were a son I ’d be one of those boys who depart into school one day and starts shooting people .

( Music—”Poor Little Rich Girl ” by Tony Bennett . )

It would be prosperous to make a story like “ Any Given twenty-four hours ” into a polemicist or a flat - out sarcasm , but McHugh gives the story more emotional resonance . The veridical focal point of the account is n’t even Emma ’s disease , but the relationship between Emma , Terry , and the rest of Emma ’s friends — which leads up to an volatile end . “ audience : On Any Given Day ” is part of McHugh ’s story collection female parent And Other Monsters , which is now a free Creative Commons download from Small Beer Press . [ Small Beer Press ]

Lesdilley