freak of conscience

I bought a sea monkey kit for my three year old. Yesterday we did the preparatory steps, putting fresh water and a purifying mixture into the little aquarium. Today was the day for adding the eggs, which come in a small packet and look like white powder. She was excited. The two big kids grabbed seats next to her at the table, eager for the show.

I tore open the packet and showed Loulou how to pour it in. But I was hurrying, and some powder spilled on the table. Salt and glue and crumbs of God knows what were all over the table, so the eggs were unsalvageable. I swept the powder into my hand and tossed it in the sink.

Sea monkeys, if you don't know, are a cryptobiotic version of brine shrimp. A sea monkey kit can sit on a dusty shelf in Walmart for ten generations, until a monkey-lovin' freak like me comes along and buys it. Then, a few days after the eggs are poured into water, voila! Tiny swimmy plankton spring to life and careen around in nutty spirals, bursting with energy and fierce intentions. I love the damn things. They make me think of great oceans and blue whales, of mystery and magic, of the beaches I used to run on with my brothers, and all the cunning tricks life plays to beat the odds.

I stopped and stared into the sink. How many sea monkeys would never be born because of what I'd done? Or -- more horrible -- how many would be born unloved in the dark hostile world of the drain, to live brief lives of terror before suffocating or dessicating or getting smashed in the blades of the garbage disposal?

Here's what's funny. I've always thought I could abort a fetus -- my own or someone else's -- without blinking an eye. But when I washed those microscopic eggs down the drain and thought of the tiny shrimps who had waited so long for their turn at life and had come so close before my careless moment stole their one chance, I felt sick.

Go figure.