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Number 5

I am Han. I must admit it’s an ironic name, King, for someone whose life was threatened even in his mother’s womb.

Here is what happened: apparently my mother and father were members of the Gene Purging Programme, under which, my gene tests were carried out as soon as it was understood that I had been conceived. The device did not give out a signal. Everyone was happy: ‘Your fifth seed is pure, there, you may give birth.’ But I fooled you there, didn’t I!

The pregnancy was uneventful; I made sure of that. I didn’t make the slightest noise in there so that I wouldn’t cause any suspicion. I gave my mother neither morning sickness nor a single sleep­less hour: In fact, I didn’t even grow to my full extent, so that she would remain totally comfortable. Oh, how happy my mother was, how happy everyone was. Well, after all it was a pure gene, and these pure genes are really something. Good thing we joined this programme. Look at Ayşe, poor woman, how plagued by flatulence she is.

I waited. To tell you the truth, I waited quite a long time. I belie­ved that if I waited for nine months I would be sure to get out no matter what. After all, by then I would officially be considered a human being! By the end of the ninth month my hands were slightly overgrown, and I was tired of making them into fists so that my mother’s belly would not swell too much; so I loosened them a little bit. Not entirely, mind you, just a little bit, just to get a little more comfortable. How I wish I hadn’t! My mother, who’d been having a really easy time of it, like a princess, suddenly rushed off to the doctor at this sudden discomfort in her belly, ordering my father to ‘Come quickly!’ over the phone. Those white-shirts, they love pontificating on such matters, they can’t get enough of it; so they got together at once. That a baby with purged genes should cause discomfort! Impossible! The white-shirts became suspicious. ‘No’, they said, ‘no, there is something wrong here’. That famous

device was brought in straight away, the belly was listened to, glances were exchanged secretly and words were exchanged openly. There has been a terrible mistake! A one-in-a-million kind of thing. You must have understood by the fact that the device gave out a signal; your baby’s genes are not pure!

My mother was furious, with that huge belly of hers! ‘How could such a thing happen? A bagful of money was spent on this programme!’

‘We are very sorry, madam, you will get a refund immediately.’

They went on coaxing her for hours to no avail; my mother would have none of it. While she was storming at the doctors I suddenly realized that my father had already slipped away. That’s what he does, my father gets lost whenever things get messy, I have observed it over these past nine months. When my mother finally noticed his absence she jumped into her car in a panic, naturally she did not listen to the doctors’ orders about not driving. She started driving and calling my father on her mobile, but there was no answer. Now she cannot stand that, she cannot stand my father ignoring her; but it’s not because she adores her husband, it’s because she has to keep up appearances. ‘Sweetie,’ she often tells her friends, ‘I can’t remember a single night when we didn’t sleep cuddling, hand in hand. In all these years we’ve not had a serious argument or disagreement.’ There is bound to be no disagreement if you keep being such a witch!

But this time she’s in deep trouble; the baby is flawed, the husband is gone, she’s been disgraced before her colleagues. She is actually quite delicate, and it must have been her hormones or something (after all she is pregnant) for even I couldn’t have predicted it, and my baby’s instincts are very powerful. In the blink of an eye she veered the car towards a cliff! I still do not know whether she was angrier with me or with herself.

But her plan didn’t work, I didn’t die! I didn’t! By the time the air ambulance arrived my mother had already breathed her last. The blue shirts immediately opened up her belly there and then and took out what was inside. Me – blind, but full of life.