Our Hideous Progeny

by C.E. McGill

I don’t believe He is omniscient. There are some events too miraculous or coincidental, I think, to have occurred by chance . . . and some too terrible to occur by intention.’

Sometimes, it felt as if every year that passed brought only another painful recollection, another bruise of a memory. Soon enough there would be not a single word which did not dredge up something I wished to forget, not a single part of me that did not cringe to the touch.

‘To stealing from God,’

wondered. Was it your forefathers and foremothers who slithered, long-necked, through the Liassic seas? Do you remember what it was like to have teeth that rent and tore? I shall give them back to you.

Which was worse, I wondered? To deny her existence to begin with, or to give her life, however briefly, only for it to be snatched away? The latter seemed the crueller by far. And yet, selfish as it was – shocking as it was, for I was sure that not so long ago I would have done quite the opposite – it was this option I chose. For it was this option that led me here: to this house, this grand project, this endeavour which was the closest thing to a purpose that I had ever known.