What is it like to be a child born of a relationship with the space-time continuum?
"The Difference Between Love and Time" by Catherynne M. Valente
Finalist for Best Novelette
Surreal. It took focus to read, but given one of the main characters is the space time continuum that is only appropriate. It very much felt like there were applicable layers to the human condition in this and also to questions about whether a relationship is healthy. And one spends parts of it wondering how much we're being told a story of 'actual' events (in the context of an SF story, of course) or a convoluted metaphor on the part of the POV character.
Either way there is mention somewhere in there of the POV character having been pregnant, which lead to me thinking about what it would be like to be a child of that relationship.
Either my father was the entire space-time continuum or my mother was completely certifiable. Sometimes even I am not sure which. Do I see the world differently from my peers because I inherited a little temporal non-continuity from its nature or hers?
Either way my childhood wasn't one I could share with others and I learned from a young age to keep my mouth shut, my head down, and not to attract attention. I wasn't the only child learning that.