Saturday, June 30, 2012

The Unit


My mood just plummeted- *snap of fingers* just like that.    You see....

I was going downstairs to walk my dogs, as a neighbor and her husband was coming up.  The neighbor had a baby with her; I was confused since I hadn't seen her around with the baby before. So I politely went 'ahh' and 'ohh' over the baby, and asked her if she was babysitting. She went "oh no!" with a laugh. She wrote, We got her today, we adopted her!  Her name is Rachel.

I congratulated her and her husband, on their new baby.   I walked off, re-broken like Humpty Dumpty, but holding the shell all together until I could get in my safe place.  The dogs hurried doing their business and so we returned back home.

I couldn't cry. I couldn't throw things.  I couldn't even feel anything, but the numbness.

Gotta do something, so I returned to the book I had started this morning, "The Unit" by Ninni Holmqvist.
Easier for me to show you the video trailer for this book, than for me to give you the plot-



The bottom line is that childless women hitting their 50th birthday, (men their 60th birthday), with no family, no productive jobs are sent to a reserve bank for biological material; they have pleasant living, activities and hobbies that make them happy, but the bottom line, they are there to donate part of their bodies- and someday, they have to give their 'final donation.'

Reading it (actually for the second time, since I had originally read it when it first came out in 2008), I found the term "dispensable" over and over in the book- not having a family, not having a productive life/employment, and not needed in society, hence to pay off was to be dispensable (by biological material donations), I couldn't help but think, "To be childless, is to be dispensable."

I'm not going to finish this book.  I don't want to do anything but lay down on the loveseat and watch "the Beauty and the Beast", with a bag of chocolate kisses, and not think of anything for the rest of the day.

So I'm doing that.


3 comments:

  1. (((HUGE HUGS)))

    There's such a depressing book out there? I sure ain't gonna read it, either.

    May you find your peace...one step at a time...

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  2. Ick. Don't read any more of that book! I can also understand how running into a newly adopted baby would be upsetting. I think I'd find that harder these days than a pregnant person. So sending hugs.

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  3. Yikes -- I read "Never Let Me Go," which has a similar plot but without the childless angle (albeit still along ALI lines -- the protagonists were clones, created specifically to grow up to be organ donors), & that was depressing enough. I hope the rest of your day was sufficiently lazy & filled with chocolate. (((hugs)))

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