The home was part of our human cycle. At first it was a passive participant, housing our children, sheltering us from the elements, and providing an inhabitation of desire. It was a second skin - a machine for living in.
As we evolved together with our homes, our bodily boundaries blended. We became systems - cybernetic, posthuman machines. Their bodies became organic, pulsing flesh. Eventually, our reproduction was outsourced to our larger bodies: the home(n).
This is how our walls got pregnant.
This is how we became (s)cyborgs.
This is how mother (h)earth was born.
The first time I thought about making you, I sat alone near the hearth of our homen. The fire warmed my aching soul as I sat with my head between my knees and shed salty droplets from my spectacles.
Em-Scy found me like this hours later.
That night we did it. This is how you came to be.
The ritual calls for a drop of me, a pinch of Em, and the embrace of our homen.
I saved my tears from earlier, knowing they would become useful for you. They carry love and fluidity. Em shared their oil, carrying their curiosity and their perceptive mind. Together, tears and oil swirled in the urn as we poured the fluids into the fire of the hearth.
Weeks passed as I constantly put my ear to the walls, listening for a pulse to emerge beside the familiar one of our homen. We kept a slow burn in the hearth, to encourage you to appear.
It wasn’t until later that month that I awoke suddenly to a soft beating in the walls. I rushed down to the hearth to find the walls bulging. A faint throb glimmered in the low light of the fire. You were here.
You grew steadily through the coming months, as did the enduring fire in the hearth. I spent hours sitting by your fire singing you songs of our ancestors. Em fed you and homen small drops of honey from the garden, gently smudging the sweet nectar into the walls. We spent time every day chopping wood from the forest to keep your fire growing. The walls began secreting plum oils, which we collected to soothe our joints, soften our hairs, and warm our bellies.
Our homen needed extra support while carrying you. We knitted a sticky web from the nearby silkworms and staked it to the ground to alleviate pressure points. Inside, the walls needed space to breathe, so we pulled our surfaces away and took down our bookshelves. We kept our favorite books in a pile by the hearth to read aloud at night. We always hoped you were listening with your ears and feeling with your heart.
Eventually, the walls were bulging so much that we had to move most things out of the homen entirely, leaving them near the garden. We started sleeping next to the hearth with our heads against the squishy walls, enveloped by you and our homen and the fire.
We were both outside readjusting the web of knots when we felt the homen seize up and heard the walls creak and groan. Dropping the threads from our grip, we ran inside to find the fire was out. It was time. You were coming.
We massaged the walls, sang our sweetest songs, mopped up the excess oils, and after several hours of the homen tensing and unwinding, you made your way through the hearth to us. We rubbed the oils over your body to ease the pain of this new world. We couldn’t believe it; you were finally here.
After three months in our world, you formed spectacles to finally see us. The homen continued excreting oils to shine your new parts while its walls slowly absorbed back into place. The fire in the hearth returned to a slow burn.
At six months, you sprouted your first set of braced limbs for mobility. We sustained your hunger with a mixture of honey from the garden and oil from the homen. The furniture was moved back inside and the shelves hung on the sturdy walls. We untied the knitted web, but left the stakes in the ground as a reminder.
At one year we gave you our family chest plate for your heart, which you diligently shined with oils for many days to come. We often found you playing near the fire, running throughout the homen and whispering to the walls. When the hearth was without flames, you would curl up in the void.
At three, your curiosity became vocal. You began asking about where you came frome. Em and I took turns walking you around the homen, looking for your fragments of prior existence. We showed you where the walls still had marks from expanding. They were most prominent near the hearth. We showed you the stakes in the ground with remnants of the sticky web. You used all your senses to discover the residue. We described to you how the homen carried you in the first part of your life.
We often heard giggles coming through the walls, as if you’d crawled back inside. There were times when I couldn’t find you, but I could feel you. You’d reappear close to the hearth. Sometimes, I’d press my hands against the walls, and whisper my love to homen for carrying you. But also, to express my worries that you might not come back out, even though you always did.
As you grew older, you asked harder questions about the role of the homen and life creation. I’d tell you about our ancestors: how they use to be the ones to carry new ones, but there was a divide that existed between those who “housed” and those who didn’t. I didn’t have an answer when you asked why this divide existed, or why it was those who carried that seemed inferior.
I did tell you how our ancestors were only made of flesh that was vulnerable and decayed. And that our homens were only made of metal, which was cold and dead. At some point, that changed, and we became intertwined. I told you how in that transformation, the homen took on the sacrifice of carrying, helping us with our own reproduction. In this sacrifice, they gained the ability to transform themselves, gaining agency. We were liberated from carrying, and therefore liberated from our division. That night you nestled in the cavity of the hearth, even though it had been years since you had last done so. I fell asleep hearing your whispers travelling through the walls once more.
There came a time when you were old enough to couple with another scyborg. Their name was Lun-Scy. Eventually they came to live in our homen. Em and I were old at this point, and our joints required far more oiling. Our chest plates were tinted with age while yours still shined brilliantly. We enjoyed Lun’s company as they became familiar with our homen. Together, you took on the brunt of the homen work, allowing Em and I to spend our days in the garden. We laughed with surprise the day we came to find you and Lun curled up in the hearth.
I remember the evening you told me you wanted one, a new scyborg that was part you, part Lun, and part homen. I shed tears, as did you, which you collected for the ritual. Em and I spent that night outside with our hands pressed into the ground and our spectacles trained on the moon. We hummed with the earth beneath us.
Together, we waited over the coming weeks for a new pulse. With weakened ears, we used our hands to feel for the beat. At night, we’d find you and Lun inside the hearth with whispers so low they could only be felt.
After months had passed without a pulse, you tried again.
A new beat never appeared.
Em returned to the earth sometime after. I felt that I was also close to this departure.
On my last night in homen, I heard something that I hadn’t in months. Giggles echoed through the walls. And then, there it was. A new beat emerged, faintly at first, then stronger. I limped to the hearth to look for the bulge.
Lun stepped out from the hearth followed by you. Curious, I saw that the walls were still slim.
You brought my hands to your chest so that I could feel the new heartbeat, one that wasn’t coming from inside homen, but instead, from inside you.
This is how the scyborg got pregnant.
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As we evolved together with our homes, our bodily boundaries blended. We became systems - cybernetic, posthuman machines. Their bodies became organic, pulsing flesh. Eventually, our reproduction was outsourced to our larger bodies: the home(n).
This is how our walls got pregnant.
This is how we became (s)cyborgs.
This is how mother (h)earth was born.
The first time I thought about making you, I sat alone near the hearth of our homen. The fire warmed my aching soul as I sat with my head between my knees and shed salty droplets from my spectacles.
Em-Scy found me like this hours later.
That night we did it. This is how you came to be.
The ritual calls for a drop of me, a pinch of Em, and the embrace of our homen.
I saved my tears from earlier, knowing they would become useful for you. They carry love and fluidity. Em shared their oil, carrying their curiosity and their perceptive mind. Together, tears and oil swirled in the urn as we poured the fluids into the fire of the hearth.
Weeks passed as I constantly put my ear to the walls, listening for a pulse to emerge beside the familiar one of our homen. We kept a slow burn in the hearth, to encourage you to appear.
It wasn’t until later that month that I awoke suddenly to a soft beating in the walls. I rushed down to the hearth to find the walls bulging. A faint throb glimmered in the low light of the fire. You were here.
You grew steadily through the coming months, as did the enduring fire in the hearth. I spent hours sitting by your fire singing you songs of our ancestors. Em fed you and homen small drops of honey from the garden, gently smudging the sweet nectar into the walls. We spent time every day chopping wood from the forest to keep your fire growing. The walls began secreting plum oils, which we collected to soothe our joints, soften our hairs, and warm our bellies.
Our homen needed extra support while carrying you. We knitted a sticky web from the nearby silkworms and staked it to the ground to alleviate pressure points. Inside, the walls needed space to breathe, so we pulled our surfaces away and took down our bookshelves. We kept our favorite books in a pile by the hearth to read aloud at night. We always hoped you were listening with your ears and feeling with your heart.
Eventually, the walls were bulging so much that we had to move most things out of the homen entirely, leaving them near the garden. We started sleeping next to the hearth with our heads against the squishy walls, enveloped by you and our homen and the fire.
We were both outside readjusting the web of knots when we felt the homen seize up and heard the walls creak and groan. Dropping the threads from our grip, we ran inside to find the fire was out. It was time. You were coming.
We massaged the walls, sang our sweetest songs, mopped up the excess oils, and after several hours of the homen tensing and unwinding, you made your way through the hearth to us. We rubbed the oils over your body to ease the pain of this new world. We couldn’t believe it; you were finally here.
After three months in our world, you formed spectacles to finally see us. The homen continued excreting oils to shine your new parts while its walls slowly absorbed back into place. The fire in the hearth returned to a slow burn.
At six months, you sprouted your first set of braced limbs for mobility. We sustained your hunger with a mixture of honey from the garden and oil from the homen. The furniture was moved back inside and the shelves hung on the sturdy walls. We untied the knitted web, but left the stakes in the ground as a reminder.
At one year we gave you our family chest plate for your heart, which you diligently shined with oils for many days to come. We often found you playing near the fire, running throughout the homen and whispering to the walls. When the hearth was without flames, you would curl up in the void.
At three, your curiosity became vocal. You began asking about where you came frome. Em and I took turns walking you around the homen, looking for your fragments of prior existence. We showed you where the walls still had marks from expanding. They were most prominent near the hearth. We showed you the stakes in the ground with remnants of the sticky web. You used all your senses to discover the residue. We described to you how the homen carried you in the first part of your life.
We often heard giggles coming through the walls, as if you’d crawled back inside. There were times when I couldn’t find you, but I could feel you. You’d reappear close to the hearth. Sometimes, I’d press my hands against the walls, and whisper my love to homen for carrying you. But also, to express my worries that you might not come back out, even though you always did.
As you grew older, you asked harder questions about the role of the homen and life creation. I’d tell you about our ancestors: how they use to be the ones to carry new ones, but there was a divide that existed between those who “housed” and those who didn’t. I didn’t have an answer when you asked why this divide existed, or why it was those who carried that seemed inferior.
I did tell you how our ancestors were only made of flesh that was vulnerable and decayed. And that our homens were only made of metal, which was cold and dead. At some point, that changed, and we became intertwined. I told you how in that transformation, the homen took on the sacrifice of carrying, helping us with our own reproduction. In this sacrifice, they gained the ability to transform themselves, gaining agency. We were liberated from carrying, and therefore liberated from our division. That night you nestled in the cavity of the hearth, even though it had been years since you had last done so. I fell asleep hearing your whispers travelling through the walls once more.
There came a time when you were old enough to couple with another scyborg. Their name was Lun-Scy. Eventually they came to live in our homen. Em and I were old at this point, and our joints required far more oiling. Our chest plates were tinted with age while yours still shined brilliantly. We enjoyed Lun’s company as they became familiar with our homen. Together, you took on the brunt of the homen work, allowing Em and I to spend our days in the garden. We laughed with surprise the day we came to find you and Lun curled up in the hearth.
I remember the evening you told me you wanted one, a new scyborg that was part you, part Lun, and part homen. I shed tears, as did you, which you collected for the ritual. Em and I spent that night outside with our hands pressed into the ground and our spectacles trained on the moon. We hummed with the earth beneath us.
Together, we waited over the coming weeks for a new pulse. With weakened ears, we used our hands to feel for the beat. At night, we’d find you and Lun inside the hearth with whispers so low they could only be felt.
After months had passed without a pulse, you tried again.
A new beat never appeared.
Em returned to the earth sometime after. I felt that I was also close to this departure.
On my last night in homen, I heard something that I hadn’t in months. Giggles echoed through the walls. And then, there it was. A new beat emerged, faintly at first, then stronger. I limped to the hearth to look for the bulge.
Lun stepped out from the hearth followed by you. Curious, I saw that the walls were still slim.
You brought my hands to your chest so that I could feel the new heartbeat, one that wasn’t coming from inside homen, but instead, from inside you.
This is how the scyborg got pregnant.
