His mother died giving birth to him and I couldn't forgive him for that.

If that makes me something rotten, then so be it.

I wept dryly by a dying side stunned and as the doctors and nurses chided me out to my seat

so as to attend to the paperwork for the mutant responsible for the death of the bloated woman

lying in the plastic hospital bed in front of me.

The doctors ushered her body away and brought me to the boy with roby tumorous skin covering

his mouth.

They assured me that the procedure to remove the fleshy patch, keeping his mouth shut,

could be exercised, and they would need me to sign off on it.

I did and handed the cold, whimpering child with no mouth off to them, excusing myself to the bathroom.

The primary physician seemed to regard me with some understanding pity. But how could he?

I stood in the bathroom, stomping my rubber soles against the solid tiles beneath my feet.

The man looking back in me from the mirror seemed to be much smaller than I remembered.

I had been so red and boisterous and ready for the family life.

Now the man there slumped his shoulders and his hair seemed to be greasy and grey.

His eyes, that of a stabbed bull in the arena, looking up and accepting death, terrified and darting.

I briefly wondered what it would be like to just die.

I could buy a gun, go home, paint the walls.

This conclusion was wholly unreasonable, I know.

This would leave the boy alone in the world, though more importantly everyone would regard me as a poor parent.

So I was stuck.

Adoption?

...