#tellastorytome "Why Mankind Left Earth" The departure
The Departure
Robot guard opened the door of the cell and Marcus walked it. He looked around the room. There were around 12 other people in the cell. The door closed behind Marcus. All eyes were directed at him. A tall guy with a tattoo of a walrus on his biceps walked in shaking gait and waved at Marcus.
“Name?”
“Marcus”
“What are you in for?”
“Forth degree”
“Forth degree what?”
“Forth degree toxic masculinity”
“Hahahaha,” The guy turned away from Marcus as if inviting other guys to share his laugh, which they supported with the different degree of enthusiasm. “Forth degree… what a dummy. I’ve never met anybody above the third. What did they get you for?”
“Looked at the girl in the office for longer than 10 seconds”
“Look at this idiot!” The guy giggled. “Don’t you know the rules?”
“I do, but I had a feedback gadget on me, that told me that she experienced a 65% attraction to me. So I was afraid that if I drop the eye contact she’d feel I am ignoring her. You know better than if she’d complain that I neglected her, I’d get a third-degree toxic masculinity charge.”
“So if she had it 65 percent for you why did she made a complaint?”
“Another girl next to her asked me a question and I had to break the eye contact with the first one.”
“So you got in the crossfire, you, poor bastard. That sounds like a correctional facility on Mars,” The guy shook his head this time with a share of sarcastic commiseration. “Name is walrus,” he pointed to the tattoo on his biceps, “Go take the third bed to the right. The guy who laid on it been sent out with the ship yesterday.”
Holding his mattress and bedsheets received from the robot guard, Marcus walked toward the bed.
Two weeks Marcus spent in the county jail waiting for his deportation to Mars. Finally, the Spacebus 365 arrived and was ready to take the next portion of prisoners.
It was a very popular vehicle to transports the guilty male population to correctional facilities. There were hundreds of them in exploitation. They were durable, reliable, and spacious. Their internal cabin could accommodate up to a thousand people. There weren’t comfortable, but who said prisoners should fly in comfort?
Marcus felt sad and scared. He was yanked out from his habitual environment: the job he loved and a woman he adored. Catherine warned him many times to be on a high alert when he was in a company of other women at work. She even suggested taking a position in a company where other women didn’t want to work because of the small pay.
“You know how it is nowadays. One wrong move and you are out! Better be safe than sorry!”
Marcus didn’t listen to her. He wanted to impress her, to be someone she could be proud of and now he had to pay for his levity, his stupidity.
“Going to Mars like me or further?” Marcus looked at the guy who sat next to him. He seemed to be a nice quiet guy, not a criminal he was surrounded in the jail cell, where he was mocked and beaten up.
“Mars”
“It’s weird what’s going on”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, soon there will be no men left on Earth. I took a course in the college of how to suppress my toxic masculinity and got an A on it. But since college time, it’s gotten stricter and stricter. It is literally impossible to work, date or have a family. The Feminist Council imposes new and new regulations.” He shook his head in a disappointment. “Now, Mars. I am so scared. I heard horrible things about these facilities. It’s completely serviced by robots. And they are going to mess with our brains.”
Marcus only sighed. He was hoping that Catherine would follow him to Mars. She told him this when cops came to take him. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll follow you to Mars. We will still be together” But could he really hope? He heard rumors that many women started going to Mars by themselves. Surely, on one hand, many of them welcomed the war on toxic masculinity. Many women supported The Feminist Council in its decision to impose stricter laws against ever spreading toxic masculinity. Who needed men after all? Who could better understand and accommodated a woman than another woman? And for those who preferred heterosexual sex, there were humanlike robots who could provide everything men can and more without all the drawbacks.
On the other hand, the male population on Earth reduced so dramatically that soon there won’t be any carriers of toxic masculinity left. And some renegade women quietly disregarded the common cause, flew to Mars and other planets and started families there. This was illogical since on Earth they could have had perfect insemination from the sperm bank.
Marcus hoped though that his Catherine will be illogical and that her words wouldn’t be just words.
“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll follow you to Mars. We will still be together.” Marcus closed his eyes. He remembered a phrase from some old movie. “Hope is a good thing. Sometimes it’s the only thing.”
Damn. Firstly thank you for going there with this one. How people envision the world could go if both genders aren’t needed to reproduce, is fascinating, it was an old prompt, but I didn’t get anything like this, and this has made me so happy.
The different reception you might get if the gender roles were flipped in in this story, and men were shipping woman off who weren’t conforming to their standard of acceptable behaviour, kind of underlines the point here.
On one level, this is hilarious. It is well written, succicint, paints a wonderfully detailed picture in so few brush strokes. The minor offense, and the severity of the response, it is so entertaining. It had the ring of old sci-fi, the tongue in cheek, exaggerated telling, not meant to represent a widespread reality, but to spark a degree of reflection that stops it getting that far. It does that wonderfully.
On another level, this is a little scary. There are very much women out there who hate men, full stop, all of them. It is painful to see, and toxic to everyone involved. This type of feminist is sadly real, but it’s still declaring ‘all of a’ > ‘all of b’, but flipping a & b in that equation doesn’t lead to equality, and this shows that so very well. I really love the element of his partner wanting to move to mars as well, it captures that atmosphere of the loudest voice not representing the crowd, her concern and assurances, his doubt and hope, not only bring a lot to the story, but gave me a lot I really enjoyed reflecting on. There isn’t one man, and one woman, we aren’t all the same, but it is getting crazy, I have to say, thought of this story when the news broke someone had accused a polotictian I am really, really not a fan of at all of sexual assault because he touched her knee when they were laughing together with her husband.
This is just such a brilliant story, cautionary, insightful, witty, and it has really stuck with me.
Wow! Thank you for such a profound reading and commenting! Yeah, it's both funny and ridiculous and scary at the same time. And most women are affected in a negative way as well as men. By now I think every man in the Western World thinks of a woman as absolutely equal in all areas of life and these tightening the screws, making things difficult.
All the normal men hate rape and any kind of violence or harassment toward women. And it's not clear how punishing the majority of good men will stop the handful of sickos. A general concent is very important, but a step by step concent is kind of ridiculous and takes all the intrigue and fun out of dating. )))
Anyhow, thank you again! I will wait for more of your prompts for future stories.
Cheers
Love this! Marcus shouldn't worry. Women are always illogical;)
BTW, You got me on tattoo of a warless. I actually googled warless!
Aahahah. That's embarrassing. I actually meant "walrus". ))) Thank you!
Yes, I saw the walrus tattoo further on down, after I'd already googled warless:)
Hi mgaft1,
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Wow! Thank you!
I do not know what to say with this story because I feel that they see us as crazy women and without logic, something strange because I am a woman but well, bringing up the subject is great the plot, congratulations
Thank you! Women have logic but it's a different one than the one that men have. It has to do with the different quantities of gray and white brains matters in their brains. Here... This guy explains it well and in a funny and entertaining way
Thanks for sharing :)
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I love the story. It was really an interesting read. Who would have thought such laws and measures could exists to keep masculinity in check. The idea of a correctional facility situated in some far away location are all part the beauty. Perhaps, Marcus will indeed be back as a changed person.
But....
It wasn't a termination facility, so I don't get the part where you mention a drastic fall in the population of males on earth. Are they not allowed to return home? Not even after the so called "correctional facility".
Well done @mgaft1.
Thanks! Glad you liked it. I figured that with the standards of toxic masculinity getting tighter and tighter men with their primal instincts and the lack of white brains matter just wouldn't be able to keep up. Especially in view of the fact that after correcting they could have stayed on Mars and wouldn't be subjected to any masculinity regulations.
There will be a huge imbalance of men and women on Earth and some regenerate women will go to Mars on their own. Eventually, those who will stay on Earth would be only hardcore feminists. Those who'd follow this code of values. https://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/shivers/rants/scum.html But without reproductions, they could only stick around for one generation, thus Earth will be deserted with only robot civilization to occupy it.
Anyhow, that is just one of the version of the possible future. Hope the divergence won't get that far and men ad women will find some golden standards of existence and be friends rather than enemies.
You had from the get go. I laughed through the first part as my experience with the opposite sex seems to play out like that. Yikes!
I loved the world you created. Very creepy, but cool.
Thank you! Glad you liked it. Hopefully, it won't go that far. )))