At least that is useful. Human babies are not even that. They are nothing but a burden. Yet people have them. It is a mystery. Are they so in thrall to some animal instinct to reproduce that they cannot see clearly? All the evidence is there. They can see others going through it. That should be enough to put them off.

They cannot act like the lion. The lion has its needs and it fulfils them.

People are required to take care of their offspring. Once they are born they are there until the day the adults die, draining them of everything that makes them special.

So who would choose this? It is unfathomable. But they do it anyway. Some are mistakes, of course, but they can’t all be.

You know what people say. It’s the wonder of being a parent, a father, a mother. The awe at having created a new life. The sensation of having some purpose beyond yourself.

This is nonsense.

There is no awe in creating a new life. There is nothing to celebrate in that.

Any fool can do it. It is nothing special.

And to think otherwise is weakness. There is nothing special about a baby simply because it has your DNA. If it was switched in the hospital for another one – provided it looked roughly similar – people would have no way of knowing.

It is just another person.

And other people – all of them – are either rivals or tools. Tools are there to be used for whatever you want. Rivals are there to be destroyed.

A baby is a rival. It competes for your resources. This is nature’s trick: you think it is somehow part of you, so you care for it. It is not part of you. You have been tricked.

But not everyone falls for the trick.

Not you. You don’t fall for it.

Not at all.

Ambleside, July 2013

Alice

They found them in a pub a few streets further into town. Donny, Hendrik, Clara and Lizzie were sitting at a table by the window; they waved as Alice and Brenda approached and beckoned them inside.

Inside it was dark and loud and smelled of beer. It was the kind of place Ned would have hated.

‘Hey,’ Donny said. ‘You made it. But Ned looks different.’

Alice laughed. ‘This is Brenda,’ she said. ‘Brenda – meet Clara, Lizzie, Donny and Hendrik.’

‘Hi Brenda,’ Hendrik said. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘You’re not from round here,’ Brenda said. ‘Let me guess. Swedish?’

Hendrik shook his head.

‘German?’

He raised his hands in mock offence. ‘Please. Do Donny and I look German? We are handsome, and funny. We are from the Netherlands.’

‘Sorry,’ Brenda said. ‘I didn’t mean any offence.’

‘That’s OK,’ Donny said. ‘None taken. You are from Australia? Or New Zealand maybe?’

‘Australia.’

‘Ah,’ Donny said. ‘Shame.’

‘Why’s that?’ Brenda asked.