Phone Conversation

“I have a children’s book you should write.”

“Alright, what is it?”

“You know how people have bred dogs to be really small and cute; basically they’re suspended in puppyhood forever, with big eyes and little bodies? And they never grow up, and after like 10 years they die?”

“Actually, little dogs live longer than big dogs. The smaller they are, the longer they live, pretty much. Which really sucks if you consider that means the little yappy fuckers my landlady has will live longer than bigger, cooler dogs. Like Huskies. Or boxers. Or basically any other dog alive that doesn’t go through my bathroom trash and spread dirty tissues and used panty liners across my room and doesn’t puke on my floor just to spite me. But yeah.”

“Ew.”

“Sorry, go on. Little dogs…”

“Yeah, so dogs bred to be small. Well, in the future, they’re going to do that to babies too. Like, human babies. They’ll figure out a way to make babies stay small, so they’ll always be cute and always be babies. And then, when they reach a certain, like after ten years, they die. They’ll be like a cool accessory, like how little dogs are now.”

“Uh huh. And this is a children’s book?”

“Well, a book about children.”

“’Mommy, how long do I have to live?’ ‘Just a few more days, honey. Just a few more days.’”

“No, they wouldn’t ever be able to talk. That’d be annoying.”

“Oh, so they’d be perpetual infants, not like little kids, but babies. Babies forever.”

“Yeah, babies forever.”

“God, that sounds terrible. Who the hell would ever want that?”

“Well, that’s where you come in. You write the book, make it seem really appealing. And then I’ll make the Forever Babies, and we’ll both get lots of money. But first you have to write the book and create the demand.”

“Ok, yeah. Kind of like how Steve Jobs created a demand for tablets with the iPad, like before people even knew what a tablet was. They didn’t know they wanted an iPad.”

“Yeah…sure. Like that.”

“So I’ll be the Steve Jobs of disposable babies.”

“…Exactly.”