sinister, the way of the baby

babies are sinister. there is no question about this although new parents will coo and drool about how close their own babies are to heaven, said babies having come just recently from there, how their hideously terrifying shrieks and howls are the voices of doves and angels. they will tell you with serious faces about the quality and volume and texture of the things they find in their own child's diaper the way prospectors will talk about nuggets of gold they've dug from the ground. because they truly believe this is a topic of great interest to the whole world. why, you ask, would otherwise sensible people do this? i will tell you. because babies use mind control. but they wield their power poorly. because they are babies. it is not so much that i believe we are in danger. it is simply that i like accuracy.

and it is not that i don't like babies. i absolutely love them, especially the ones i know personally. i think they are fantastically awesome little science experiments, creatures with capabilities so far beyond our own we insist on seeing them as helpless to make ourselves feel better. this is very dangerous as it causes us to underestimate the amount of control we have over the lives of these babies and over our own lives, as well. the amount of control we really have is at or about zero.

it seems we'd be better off recognizing the true nature of these creatures and respecting it. this is the sort of thing the c.i.a. ought to be investigating, this mind control. how exactly is it babies get people to wipe their butts for them? wake up seventy five times a night just to be sure they're sleeping? carry their surprisingly heavy little dead-weight bodies everywhere like fat, snot-crusted jewelry?

so when i am nosing through an old barn of a thrift store and happen upon a pile of glass photo negatives, quite a few of them depicting the true and dangerous nature of babies, i grab them all up. you can see the babies here, their eyes empty of anything but the desire to get you to bend to their wills. i will be making these negatives into cards to give to new parents. you know, those congratulations on your little bundle of joy type things. they will be wrapped in old linens handstitched with pretty flowers. they will be tied with wide ribbons or soft yarns. and they will have good tidings of great joy written on them somewhere. tidings like babies can steal your soul. however, they have notoriously poor motor skills so it's pretty easy to get your soul back. when you uncover the truth on a dusty bookshelf next to some defunct polaroid cameras, you have to share it. knowledge is power.