In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 70-75

The second generation in their teens,
while picnicking outside the walls one day,
were set on by some wannabe marines.
The boys were killed; the girls were forced to lay.

The raiders with the settlers made a trade:
one damsel at a time for some supplies.
And when the final ransom had been paid,
they stormed the banks to take again their prize.

They had no more success than Seven Six
(The carrier, much later Ciral’s jail)
at getting past the razor wire and bricks
while climbing through an artificial hail.

While Seven Six had donated her shell,
the others left a much more subtle mark:
their genes, of course, but something else as well:
They changed life in what Darna called “that park”.

Before the raid, both parents of a child
affected its development two ways:
the first, as the genetic code compiled,
and then by teaching, punishment, and praise.

But here they had a slew of pregnancies
with none of them a father anywhere.
Somehow the unaffected families
found selfishness a little hard to bear.

Hard to bear: Remember, they started out “…being careful not to share.” At this point, though, they were only shortly removed from the influence of the mores with which you and I are familiar and with which they had been raised, so most of them were fairly easily returned. By Ciral’s time they had lost these sentiments again, due to lack of reinforcement rather than willful suppression.

©2010 Louis A. Merrimac