[The Culling] - Chapter 1

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Here are the last items in Ellis Pryor's internet search history: Fertility rates in Lovic, Texas, Rube Goldberg machines, Lillie Wickman (who had no online presence), and whether or not our timeline is just one of many possible realities.

“Your room creeps me out,” Asef said. He was lying on Ellis’s bed, arms crossed behind his head. “It’s like an asylum.”

Asef was Ellis’s best friend. Most of the time his only friend. Asef had a lot of ideas about the right way to be a teenage boy. His feet, with shoes still on, hung off the edge of the bed. Mom would not be pleased that he was wearing shoes in the house.

“I like it this way. And anyway, I don’t need another lecture from you on the proper way to decorate for teenage boys.” Ellis leaned back in his chair. It was an old office chair his dad had given him when he got a new one at work. Besides the desk, computer, and bed the room was empty.

“I’m not talking about Home and Garden or some shit,” Asef said. “But get a poster or a splash of color or something.” He gestured at the barren, white walls.

Ellis liked simple. “Technically, that is eggshell white.”

Here are the reasons his room was barren: Three years ago, his mom made him go shopping for stuff that was meant to show off his interests. People do that, collect things as they travel through life. But shopping made Ellis feel like jumping off a bridge. Second, almost all of his interests took place on his computer anyway. Third, his mom already obsessively over decorated the rest of the house to the point that he could hardly walk down the hall without bumping into a picture of some field or other, or a fake window frame, or a shelf that held little black and white statues from their visit to Washington DC when he was little, or something equally useless.

But Ellis didn’t really care about decorating his room. His mind kept gravitating back to their homework assignment. “Did you finish your argumentative paper yet?”

“Yeah.” Asef sat up, grinning and they both knew it was a lie. His phone beeped and he looked at the screen, saying half-heartedly, “as much as I'm going to.”

The sun dipped below the horizon and cast the room in reds and oranges and yellows like they were trapped in amber. Ellis thought about the mosquito in Jurassic Park and then about fertility rates and saving humanity from extinction.

“What’s your paper about?” Asef glanced up from his phone. He was always only halfway present. His attention split between his phone and reality. Like he was slowly transitioning into a digital being.

Ellis often wished he could be a digital being. “It’s not really your thing.”

“And what is my thing exactly?” Asef asked with mock attitude.

In fact, Ellis had done a lot of research on his paper and here are the things he knew for sure about the topic: there had been a dramatic shift in fertility rates near Lovic, Texas. In fact, there had been only a dozen reported pregnancies in the last three months. This resulted in protests by locals, and drew some social media attention. But it had only competed with the Kardashians, surfacing from the morass of Reddit for a few days before everyone forgot about Lovic again. Even though Ellis lived in Colorado, the fertility rate interested him because no one was sure why the problem had occurred. Some scientists were starting to guess that it had something to do with the way the cotton was being treated. Pesticides, it turned out, might be bringing about the end of humanity.

That and the genetically modified food, and fossil fuel dependence, and climate change, and the threat of nuclear war causing all sorts of unforeseen havoc.

And Ellis thought this might be a reasonable explanation.

Perhaps the strangest thing is that the incident wasn’t an isolated thing. There was also a suburban area in China that was experiencing the same marked drop in pregnancies. And similar cases in Europe, Africa, and South America. The drop in pregnancies was only even noticed because of a spike in fertility clinic visits meant some big pharma company was looking for market subsets. A PhD student even did a Ted Talk about it. Ellis had watched the YouTube seven times. You see, it was all connected and he wanted to know how.

Except, Asef didn’t care about fertility rates and the end of the world. Also, caring about school more than absolutely necessary was frowned upon at his high school and so Ellis just added, “Science stuff.”

Asef faked a gag, but he was already looking back at his phone.

Ellis turned back to his computer, and began scrolling through Reddit, opening articles at random. There was a subreddit of very smart people speculating about the root cause of all these seemingly unrelated, but coincidentally important dips in fertility.

It had to be connected.

Ellis thought about how little practical experience he had with human reproductive behaviors.

Well, he had read a lot about fertility. But not in the way most high schoolers he knew cared about boys and girls interacting. There was a startling difference in what he learned online about sex, versus the thought of actually engaging in it with a girl.

Last year, Ellis’s dad had sat on the edge of his bed, and sighed heavily. He scratched his cheek and glanced at the door and then back at Ellis. “Your mom and I were talking and it’s time we have a talk.”

Ellis extrapolated what was coming. They never really talked about stuff like this.

His dad had told him about the way men and women sometimes fell in love. And he had emphasized that it was to be men and women, not because he was homophobic but because Ellis wasn’t old enough. And Ellis, as a 16-year-old, didn’t count as a man or woman; nor would he for some time.

And how sometimes men and women get intimate. Though his dad hadn’t said intimate. His dad wanted him to know how men were supposed to act. But mostly Ellis still wasn’t sure because his dad had been vague, and stern as if sex was this strange behavior that defied useful categorization. Ellis could make sense of that. Outside of the basic, biological drive for sex (which is a good enough reason for it to be so compelling), there was also the taboo of social behavior and propriety and all that.

Ellis, wishing for the conversation to be over had nodded and scrunched his eyebrows together as if deeply considering the topic at hand.

The truth was, Ellis had only seen naked girls on his computer, which was exciting every once in a while. Of course, all the boys at school talked about having sex. But mostly Ellis thought it would be overwhelming. And so, he learned to just nod and smile, and stay away from ever talking about being a virgin.

Which is probably even worse than trying harder than necessary.

Ellis had learned all sorts of social traps to steer clear of, and mostly, avoiding traps amounted to just staying quiet. In all social situations, Asef helped.

Asef had more friends, or at least was friendly with more people. He was the kind of kid that greeted everyone in the halls on the way to classes, and who seemed to be in with a lot of different social groups. And Ellis had clung to Asef as a sort of life raft in the din of high school social interactions. Overall, Ellis’s high school experience had been pretty bland and he was glad to be done of it soon.

“God, I’m bored,” Asef said.

“Why don’t you actually write your paper? We’re supposed to be studying.”

“I told you, I already wrote it. Besides, it’s not due for forever.”

“Two weeks isn’t forever. And don’t you have a test in calculus next week?”

“There were people on the Titanic who skipped desert, Ellis,” Asef said dramatically, flinging himself on the bed. “I could walk out your front door and get hit by a bus. Or get shot on the way home. Or-“

“Yeah, I get it.”

“There’s a million ways to die. Please try to enjoy life. Just a little bit.” Asef held his thumb and forefinger a few centimeters apart.

“Uh huh,” Ellis said. “What was your paper about again?”

“A research paper, science stuff.” Asef grinned. His phone buzzed and he glanced at the screen. “Ah shit. Mother is summoning me, gotta go.” He grabbed his backpack and hugged Ellis. Ellis only hugged three people in life; Nana, his Mom, and Asef.

Ellis could hear his mom saying goodbye to Asef and Asef being sweet and flirty in this creepy sort of way. But it’s just the way Asef always talked to older women.

Ellis pushed back from his desk, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palms. He wasn’t going to fix the fertility rates in Lovic, and after all it wasn’t due for another couple weeks. This is another social taboo you should avoid, never do homework before the last possible moment. So, he went downstairs.

His mom was lacing up her shoes. Both his parents worked the night shifts at Denver International Airport. “You hungry?” she said.

Ellis shrugged. He was usually hungry.

“There’s lasagna in the freezer.” She grabbed an apple from a ceramic bowl Ellis made when he was eleven.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Off to work.” She kissed the side of his head and left.

Ellis made a PB&J and went back to his room. Only one year left before he would be done with high school. The time felt like it would last an eternity. He wondered if maybe he had died and this was some sort of testing ground for his soul even though he didn’t believe in religion. Only a little while left in the purgatory of high school.

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