Work Text:
-- Good morning Moon City!
You are listening to Radio Tranquility. Today is June 1st, 20021, which is International Children’s Memorial day --
Oh. It’s that day.
She does not turn from her trimming work, but curses as a sprig fell loose where she did not intend to cut.
-- Whether you are a child at heart or simply miss those little people running around with infinite stamina, this is a day worth celebrating, --
Children at heart? She knew some of those. Kind of envious of them, actually. They keep their childish wonder for themself, instead of... a burden to carry, a responsibility for being the last human born.
Being the last human born isn’t hard… It finally stopped being so hundreds of years ago. But it still resurfaces sometimes, foggy memories of her youngest days. And it still stings.
She tried so hard to not be defined by the date she’s born on, but what can you do when society isn’t ready to let their Last Baby go yet?
-- As per tradition, festivities will be hold all over the city for Children’s Memorial Day --
She remembers her last Children’s day, standing out in the fields with her class -- the final class of the school.
(In her first year, the field for school assembly was filled with boisterous children and tired teachers wrangling little menaces under their care. With every June came graduation, and the commotion lessened and lessened until they were the only two lines of people on the court.)
They stood -- most of them fed up by the ceremony and wanted to go home -- listening to their principal talk about cherishing what’s left of their youth and “the end of an era”. His slicked back hair and wrinkled face unchanged, reminding her of their first day at school. He was also talking about something wise-sounding but insubstantial.
Adding onto the déjà vu, the media was there, too, as if the early summer heatwaves wasn’t enough of a nuisance. Shutter, shutter -- she’s used to this, her classmates less so: when most of your major milestones in life are publicized, you learn to grow numb to it.
You learn to accept that you aren’t just living for yourself, now.
Children’s day was not about the children.
She heard someone sniffle loudly into their handkerchief. It came from the side, where parents and teachers stood as the camera crew. She grimaced, and shifted her attention before she hear another click.
Yikes... At least this one will be the last.
She thought, hopeful. Wrong.
The ceremony did end 10 minutes later and she was allowed to go home after being posed for photos.
(She got to read it a few days later, “The Last Baby’s Last Children’s Day”. Another newspaper clipping for the collection.)
It was naive of her, age 16, exhausted and dumb, to believe that it would be the last. For the next June the fields were empty, and the next year after, Children’s Memorial Day was celebrated instead.
The holiday still left a bad taste in her mouth. It was a day of remembrance. Of mourning.
She always felt bitter about that. There is nothing to mourn. People mourn what’s lost, but the children of the past did not die, they just grew up.
They changed and some didn’t, but people only ever see what they wanted to see. And she will, for a long time, be the symbol of innocence and youth they so dearly miss, until the day she finally strangled the Last Baby for good and exited the stage without a bow.
So now they can only mourn. And reminisce about children, which wouldn’t bring them back anyways.
-- So come down to Serenity Square for the annual Moon City Memorial Potluck, where everyone brings their favourite childhood comfort food for an extra evocative meal!
PSA: Unfortunately the Whimsical Everything Shake is cancelled this year. Whoever brought rubbing alcohol as their childhood favourite drink ruined it for everyone, and the lunobots were not happy about it. --
She snorts.
No, truly, nothing to mourn here. Children might have died out, but people will be childish, and immortality could not change that.
-- Don’t forget, you can share your own baby pics and your current pics for the Memorial Wall, through the hashtag #BabyfaceBingo20021. The game begins at 19:00 UTC --
She reaches over and changes the channel.
Pssh. What kind of idiot would put their baby photo out for everyone to see, huh?
She says over the static, to the rose bush she’s trimming. It does not respond, because roses do not speak.
(And it’s a rhetorical question, of course. She knows very well who would and did.)
She easily finds a familiar channel, and picks up the scissors once more as voices fill the room.
-- Right, it's June, isn't it.
. Happy pride month, everybody.
. (to the tune of happy birthday) lalalalalalaaa ♪
. ...Whose birthday is it?
> gay people ig
. Every single gay person in the world was born on June 1st?
> emotionally yea
> its kinda like getting christened except instead of a water birthday its a gay birthday every1 gotta share
She couldn’t help but smile at that.
Birthday in June… That doesn’t sound like an awful idea. Death of a Baby, and rebirth of...
A person. A human. Rebirth of herself, shed off all the symbolism or labels, honest and raw in its entirety.
That alone made her feel a little bit better.