Chapter 7 – Priority

Chapter 7 – Priority

Combined with what I learned from my friends, it didn’t take me too long to have a better overview of the situation. Jumping straight to the conclusion, I was now certain this wasn’t the same world I knew of. In this world, about 150 years ago, humanity started to panic because the population’s fertility levels were way too low. If they stayed like this, it was only a matter of time until humanity would cease to exist.

This was why governments all over the planet instituted policies to encourage births. At first, it was simple incentives, but seeing those didn’t work, they created rule after rule. Eventually, it came to the current situation, where sex was not only normal and mundane but it was also mandatory at school. Just like my friends said, having sex now was no different from any other activity. In the eyes of the passerby from before, the couple having sex out in the streets was no different from people eating snacks or drinking soda.

And that wasn’t all. To give a maximum of leeway to people wanting to have sex, they made it so that sex was always the highest priority in any circumstance. No one was allowed to stop folks from having sex. On the contrary, everything should be done to accommodate and facilitate it.

What an insane world. But amazing, nonetheless.

And of course, protection was strictly forbidden. In fact, condoms didn’t even exist. Scientists had poured all their efforts into eliminating all and any sexually transmitted diseases so that sex was always safe from that point of view.

As I continued to read about this world, I found many other differences. While I was deep into my research, I heard my family members coming back home one after the other. I wasn’t sure how changed they would be from what I knew and could only hope the differences would be minimal. Even though we fought from time to time, we were usually a harmonious family. Eventually, my mother called everyone for dinner and I exited my room, my heart beating hard inside my chest.

When I got to the living room, they were all already seated. There they were, my mother, big sister, and little sister, all of them sporting brown hair and brown eyes, just like me. The only difference between them was their build and the length of their hair. Reese, my big sister, had long hair and a normal build. She looked at me neutrally for a second before focusing back on her meal. June, my baby sister, was slim and full of life. She grinned a little when I entered and I responded to her smile with mine. Last but not least, Arianna, my mother, had shoulder-length hair and generous forms. She gently smiled at me and I was reassured to see this expression I had gotten used to.

Today’s meal was spaghetti carbonara, one of my favorites. I happily indulged after sitting down, this strange day having made me particularly hungry. My mother started the conversation, as she usually did.

“I had a good day, as always. I’m blessed with my three darlings, after all. I chatted with some friends, did a bit of grocery shopping, and went for a swim.”

There it was. The mother I remembered was working as a manager in a large firm producing heating solutions for people. But this didn’t seem to be the case in this world, which made sense. When Calan and Remy said girls received money for having children, it wasn’t a joke. The amount they received was tremendous, enough to live for twenty years. That was how important children were to the world now. Women were then expected to focus on child raising with all their love and passion in exchange for the money.

This was a deal that many women were happy to take and my mother seemed to be the perfect example of that. With three grown children, she had accomplished her life goal and could now relax in peace. Since men and women were so infertile, she was more in the minority than anything else, though. Many women could only dream of being in the same situation, no matter how hard they tried.

This also created a ripple effect. The concept of dual parenthood didn’t exist anymore. In the previous world, my dad had left my mother right after June’s birth. In this world, it was uncertain what happened exactly.

As for other people, they only had a mother and that was it. The term father had ceased to exist altogether because men didn’t take any part in their children's lives. A woman could also have children from many different men, or they could even not know who the father was. However, that wasn’t important in this world. The only thing that mattered was having children, no matter where they came from.

With all these policies, the nations in the world somehow managed to maintain a stable level of population, just barely. They didn’t know what else they could do since any previous attempt to force people more than this had always backfired. However, that wasn’t a problem anymore. I was here, after all. I was confident to inflect statistics positively.

I couldn’t wait for the next sexual education lesson already.

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