I hated wearing neck ties. I didn't even know why people had to call them neck ties. It wasn't like I called a belt a waist tie, or a headband a head tie. No, everyone had to call these nooses of corporate society neck ties. And for a hundred years, stupid men had been wearing them to assert themselves over other men. My tie had a Tabasco sauce happy face sticking its tongue out on it, as if it was saying 'damn, this is some goodass Tabasco sauce, and you should get over here with this guy wearing me and go get some Tabasco sauce, pour it on some food, and then eat the hell out of that food.' It was the only tie I had, and I didn't have any spare money to go buy another one. Every cent was still being saved up for my Spain trip.

The neck tie was being worn because I was in my lime-green suit. It was a very ugly, very old suit. My dad had bought it for me when I was thirteen for a wedding. I don't even remember who was getting married. It might have been a cousin. I wasn't allowed to wear the typical teenage dress up code of any pair of pants you owned that weren't jeans and a sweater that wasn't covered in mustard. I had to go with Pops to the biggest suit store in town and buy a stupid suit. I had to try something like six suits on before we found one that suited his fancy.

I still hadn't got another one, so the old one lived on. It was getting a little short in the legs and arms, and apparently my ass had grown a little bigger over the course of three years, because the fabric along said ass was being stretched thin like a dying balloon.

I looked ridiculous, but better than I would have otherwise. I was desperate. I needed a kid, fast. Jodi had turned me down, and I'd passed the point of no return to try and convince someone else to have a kid with me.

I was at the adoption office.

A sixteen-year-old kid, wearing a too-small suit and looking a lot like a sixteen-year-old kid, was sitting in the adoption office. There was no one else in the waiting area, so I wondered why they were making me wait. A sinking wave in my gut made me think that they weren't going to see me.

The receptionist had certainly given me a strange enough look when I walked up to her and asked to see the adoptioneer. I didn't know what they called people that worked in an adoption office, but I liked the sound of adoptioneer.

It wasn't fair for her to give me a strange look. Her hair was really thin and she had nasty dry skin and a huge zit growing on the end of her nose. The look she gave me only drew my attention to the nasal zit even more, and by the time we were done talking there were strange looks being thrown back and forth all over the place. I was very happy when she asked me to go have a seat and wait until my number was called.

"Does it ever really get busy enough in here for you to have to use numbers?" I asked.

The impertinent teenager within me couldn't help but ask. I should have told him to shut up, because he was precisely the one that was going to screw this whole thing up for me.

"You'd be surprised, kid," she replied, and handed me a little slip of paper. "Now, just sit down and wait until your number comes up on that little display above your head."

My little paper had a big black nine on it. I looked up and saw a red digital readout that said '07.'

I sat down in one of the countless empty chairs that were lined up neatly on either side of the room. Zitnose was at one end, with a dying ficas and the door leading into the rest of the adoption center right behind her. The opposite end of the room was taken up by the door leading to the outside world and a low table that was covered in magazines, newspapers, and one of those kid's toys that was a whole bunch of bent metal wire with weird little wooden balls attached to it. The balls were strangely therapeutic as I pushed them along their little railways. I didn't even look at the magazines.

"I see you're enjoying our facilities, sir."

I spun around, knocking the stupid ball-wire mess right on to the floor. It clanged loudly as it rolled around, and banged into my shin when I picked it back up. I put it back on the table and stood up to face the woman that had addressed me.

"Hello. I'm Dr. Yamato," she said, offering me her hand.

It was a small hand with long fingers. Everything about Dr. Yamato was sort of long but small. Her head was small, but her hair was long and tied back in a tight ponytail. She had a little tiny torso, but her arms and legs were really long so she ended up being average height. She had a pretty face, but really thin lips.

"What can I help you with, Will?"

My file was in her hand, so she'd studied up on me. I wondered if she'd already decided one way or the other about the adoption. Was it all up to her? I'd written a sort of script for myself to work with while I was being interrogated by the adoption people. From all the adoption scenes and movies I'd seen over the years, it always looked like the process was more intense than the Spanish Inquisition. I was going to have to break out my best stuff with Dr. Yamato. A benign smile teased her thin, thin lips, but her eyes were no nonsense to the end of her optic nerves. I breathed deeply and smiled back.

"Hello, Dr. Yamato," I said, attempting to lower my voice a couple of octaves to make myself sound older.

I shook her hand, and was again amazed by how slender the appendage was. I felt like I could have just crushed the whole thing into jelly and spread it on to a sandwich right there.

"I'm interested in adoption," I said.

It was a stupid thing to say.

Obviously I was interested in adoption. You don't just walk into an adoption clinic for kicks. I could honestly say I'd never turned to Viktor on a boring rainy day and said 'Hey man, let's go check out what's kickin' at the adoption spot.' Knowing Viktor, however, he would have said yeah, and that it would be a cool idea. I had a very strange friend.

"I see," Dr. Yamato said.

I could tell from the way she said it that she was thinking the exact same thing that I was, and that what I'd just said was quite possibly the most asinine thing anyone had ever said.

"Why don't you step into my office?"

I threw my head back and barked out my best business man chuckle.

"Lead the way," I said.

Dr. Yamato opened the door beside the reception desk and held it for me. I sauntered through in what I hoped was a very relaxed, confident fashion. I probably looked like a limping retarded gibbon, but I was through the door and one step closer to getting myself a kid.

"Marilyn, hold all my calls," Dr. Yamato said to Zitnose.

So Zitnose had a real name.

Dr. Yamato's office was the last door on the left of a very short corridor. She unlocked her office door and stepped inside. I followed her in and she closed the door behind us.

There was hardly enough room for Dr. Yamato and her desk in the office, so the fact that she had a tiny little stool for me to perch on was a welcome surprise. If she'd made me stand it would have felt like the principal's office, and I hadn't been sent to the principal's office for years. I had sworn at someone during a game of touch football where we were all tackling each other. One of our guys had gotten tackled before he actually ran anywhere, and I called him a bad word. Our principal, a hyper-religious man that didn't believe in competition or fun, heard my diatribe and brought me in for an inspirational moment. I spent the whole long lecture staring at his left eye and wondering why his breath smelled like peanut butter, tuna, and ass all at once. Not a single word he'd said had sunk in, but I didn't swear during football after that. Maybe it had been a more effective verbal beating than I'd remembered.

"Please sit down, Will," said Dr. Yamato.

"Yes, ma'am,"I whispered, barely audible even to myself.

She sat down in her chair, and I balanced my left buttock on the stool while the right one dangled in the wind. Dr. Yamato moved her glasses closer to the end of her nose and peered through them like a woman three times her age. Not even my Grandma wore her glasses like that yet. She dropped my file onto her desk and flipped it open.

"You are, in fact, Will Charles, of 265 Helmcken Street?" she asked.

"That's me," I replied.

"A simple yes or no will suffice."

Suffice was not a word that was thrown about willy-nilly any more. I was sure there was a patch in the Restoration, or maybe the Renaissance, or even colonial America, where suffice was one of the more popular words of the day. I was willing to bet good money that six out of every ten kids at my school would stare at you with eyes so blank they would make a cow blush if you asked them to define suffice.

"Are you sixteen?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Your date of birth is January the second?"

"Yes."

"Your favourite colour is green?"

"Yes."

Dr. Yamato folded the file cover back over my file and pushed the whole thing away. She hitched her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose, and looked more like herself again. Her arms crossed over her chest, and she squinted at me with scrutinizing eyes.

"Why do you want to adopt, Will Charles?" she asked. "Is it for your benefit, or the child's?"

It was a good question.

"The child's," I said, without hesitation. "I wish to take my child home and teach them the ways of the world. Without my help, this baby could grow up to be a thief, or a murderer, or someone that doesn't return their library books on time."

Nothing.

Not even a flicker of amusement. I thought it sounded like a good answer.

"Do you know what it takes to raise a child, Will?" she asked, her voice taking on a serious 'I'm trying to help you now' tone.

I hated that tone. Teachers that used their tone were often victim to large scale pranks in weeks following.

"More or less, yes."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded. "I'm sure there are certain situations that you can never really prepare for, but I would have to say that I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

Her left eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. Was I getting to her? Was I wearing her down? Had my charm finally worked through her impenetrable doctor armour? She opened a drawer in her desk with some difficulty and pulled out what looked like a television remote control. She pointed it at the wall behind her, and a small panel slid open, revealing an even smaller screen. The screen flickered to life, and a video started playing.

The words 'Babies and You' popped up on the screen in big yellow letters. A cartoon couple wandered around, doing all sorts of fun things and looking very much like they were enjoying themselves. The guy was all sporty and was part of a band and generally the coolest guy that ever walked the Earth, while the girl was incredibly popular, smart and ridiculously good-looking. They started going out, and there was a particularly awkward sequence where a couple of rabbits frolicked about the screen as the boy and girl got romantic with each other out of sight. It wasn't even good animation. It was the same crappy animation they used on Saturday morning cartoons, where the main characters just kept walking past the same background over and over again, and we as the audience were just supposed to accept all of these various scenes as different locations because the characters said they were.

'Nine Months Later' scrolled across the screen in even bigger yellow letters, and the music changed to a very sombre death march that would have made happiness suicidal. My cartoon friends showed up again, this time screaming at each other and looking very haggard. A haggard cartoon was very disturbing to see, especially when it was shrieking bleeped out curse words at its haggard cartoon spouse. The music and shrieking reached a terrifying crescendo, and the words 'Are You Ready For This?' rolled into view, blood red and melting down the screen. Dr. Yamato reached up again and aimed her remote at the screen. It flickered off and the panel slid back into place. She stared at me with inquisitive eyes.

"Well?" she asked.

"What the hell was that?" I blurted.

Dr. Yamato smiled warmly, but her eyes were still searching me for answers. "That, Will, was a video designed to warn would-be parents against attempting parenthood before they're ready for it. I have my suspicions that you fall into the category of not ready for it. What do you think?"

I was livid. She was sitting there behind her desk of smug doctorhood, making me watch videos that shouldn't have been made in the first place, telling me that she didn't think I was ready for parenthood. My dad had always warned me about people in medical professions: they always thought they were better than everyone else, and treated everyone like they knew what was best for them. From brain surgeons down to pharmacists, they had an arrogance that made my dad not trust medicine, and I think he'd gone to the doctor once in the sixteen years that I'd known him. A little bit of school and a hint of advanced knowledge, and the world owed them a living.

"You don't even know me!" I cried, cursing myself mentally for spewing such a blatant cliché. "You read some questionnaire I filled out because your zitnosed receptionist made me, and you hardly say two words to me before you're telling me I'm not ready to do this yet. You just look at your charts and you figure I'm part of some stupid kid demographic that hasn't even completely grasped the concept of asswiping, and you throw me into some pile that you'll 'keep for your records' which really means that my file will go into some stack that will be lost forever once you guys inevitably upgrade your filing system in three or four years because you never got it right in the first place, and then where am I? Doctor, I need this to happen. My family needs this to happen, my dad needs this to happen, I...I can't go home without a kid today, doctor. My manhood depends on it. Please."

Dr. Yamato's eyes shifted to match her smile, and her face wore genuine kindness for the first time since I'd met her. She pushed my file away, and folded her hands together on the desk. She breathed in and out loudly through her nose, as if she was preparing her thoughts before she said anything to me. I felt a hard knot of dread clench up my gut, and I knew what she was going to say was going to be bad news.

"William," she said, using my full name the way adults only did when they were mad at me or trying to drive home a point. "Adoption and child-rearing are the most responsible, challenging endeavours a person will ever take on. Most adults aren't capable of really devoting themselves to such a task. It‟s a very steep learning curve, and one that shouldn't be tackled by someone who isn't ready. You're still a..."

"Don't call me a child," I warned. "Right now, whatever I am, whatever you think of me and even if your opinion of me is the most honest and truthful piece of analysis ever worked out by the human brain, you need to not call me a child now."

Dr. Yamato looked down at her hands. "I wasn't going to call you a child. I was going to say that you were a long way from being ready. You've been through a lot, Will. I can understand how doing something like this would make sense to you in your fragile state..."

"Fragile state?" I cried, knocking the stool over as I leapt to my feet. It didn't exactly crash to the floor, but bumped into the wall and became wedged between it and the desk. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"I mean that it's natural to do strange things, things that you normally wouldn't do if you were in the right frame of mind. I've been a doctor for a long time, Will, and I've seen lots of different people do lots of different things that didn't make any sense at the time. A sixteen-year-old adopting a baby is one of those things. No one would ever grant you a child, Will. It's better for the baby, and for you."

I felt tears behind my eyes, and if I said too much they were going to escape. I didn't care. Dr. Yamato had failed me. Utterly and completely failed me. I was doomed now to never be a man, and I was sentenced to never live up to my dad's standards.

"So, that's a no then?" I said.

My voice was doing this pathetic quivering thing that made me sound like I was underwater, and I couldn't stop it from happening.

"You're not going to let me adopt a baby."

"I'm afraid not, Will," she said.

"You're not even allowed to drive yet. I don't think allowing you to guide a child through the mires of society is such a good idea."

She was trying to be nice. I didn't want her to be nice. I wanted her to stop talking and leave me alone. I left her office without another word, and then headed for the exit.

Zitnose attempted to stop me to sign some other paper, but I told her to do something very rude to herself and kept walking. I kicked the door, which hurt like hell because it opened in, not out, and then yanked the door open as hard as I could. I didn't even care where I was going.

The day never ends.

I wake up and it's there.

I go to sleep and it's there.

I live it.

It is me.

Vegetable beef soup. The pungent tang of overcooked Campbell's vegetable beef soup. Boiling over and splashing on the smooth glass surface of our state-of-the-art stove. I was supposed to be watching the soup. Stirring it, adding more water if it needed thinning, or just letting it cook off if it needed some body. Soup was easy. Soup I could do.

Five flapping mouths that never shut up need to be fed, mine included. Trapped in the house by snow. Stir crazy, buck wild, apeshite children bouncing off the walls and threatening to eat each other if they don't get their soup soon. 

We get distracted. Someone starts some silly game that we all pick up. Jokes fly back and forth. None of us can handle being outfunnied, so we get louder and more ridiculous. The soup boils on.

Loud music plays in the background. I don't even know what it is. I just turned it on and cranked it. Both parents are out of the house, and that never happens. Stay-at-home Mum and a retired old man means adapting to perceived oppression and no TV control after 6 pm. News. News and sports until they toddle off to bed. They so rarely go anywhere or do anything; any time we have a chance we cut loose a little. The music is so loud we don't even hear the door burst open.

"Shut it off!"

Soup. Bellowing. Little Connor tells a really dumb joke. We all laugh.

"Shut that off!"

Something's amiss. Somewhere in all the fun and hilarity something is very wrong. I can sense it. I turn the music off. Mum is standing at the door, hair wild, snow-heavy wind rushing past her through the open door. She's been crying. 

"Turn off the soup!" she roars. "Your father's had an accident!"

She bustles past me into the kitchen, and starts riffling through the huge rat's nest of crap that we have sitting on our kitchen table. She finds the phone book, and flips to the front inside cover. The emergency line. We don't have 911 service in our little town.

"Will, just make sure everyone stays inside." Her voice is wobbly, and the fearful look in her eyes is all I need to see. I bolt out of the house – no shoes; no jacket – and just run. 

He'd gone out to plough the driveway. Our driveway is half a kilometer long; a steep, treacherous corkscrew that turns into a sheet of ice the second it snows. Dad uses our thirty-five hundred year old tractor that I think was built around the same time as Stonehenge to plough the driveway, and in all the time we've lived in our out of the way manor he's never had a single problem with it.

Until today.

I run down the driveway, huffing and wheezing because I started smoking one month ago. Stupid idea, but man did that buzz feel good. I would stop when the buzz stopped. Definitely. That buzz was the only reason I smoked. It wasn't like I was addicted. I can hear the tractor roaring in the woods.

"Dad?" I call, not expecting an answer but desperately praying that Mum was wrong. Nothing responds. The tractor drones on. It doesn't sound like it's moving anywhere. It's roaring on and on past the long twisty bend in the driveway. I pass the bend, and look around for the tractor. I see it, just off the driveway, wheels spinning in the snow. It's crunched into a tree, and isn't going anywhere for a while. The wheels have worn a hole in the snow right down to the ground, and are making a slick sheet of ice.

There he is.

My dad.

His eyes are closed. He looks peaceful. If it wasn't for his head resting on his arm at an awkward angle and the tractor blade crushing down on his spine, he might as well have been sleeping. 

He's dead.

My father is dead.

I can't believe it.

I won't believe it.

I shout a high-pitched 'No!' and try to lift the tractor blade off of him. It won't budge. It's five hundred pounds of solid steel forced down by a hydraulic lift. Unless I become as strong as the human equivalent of an ant, there is no way in hell I'm lifting that blade by myself. I get mad, because I'd read or heard that people get a huge injection of adrenaline in emergency situations and can do superhuman things, but I wasn't getting that shot of adrenaline. Maybe I somehow already knew it was too late.

I give up on the blade. The wheels are still spinning. I reach over to the ignition key and shut the tractor off. The engine dies and the wheels stop. The silence is wonderful, at least for a moment. It grows, swallowing me whole, blanketing the entire world. I don't want to look down again. It can't be real. If I don't look down, it's not real. Please, dear God, if I ever needed you to step in and change the world for me, for anyone, it would be right now. I'll never ask for anything again. I've never asked for anything. Please, make this moment not be real.

I know it is. 

My feet are turning numb. I hear the crunch of footsteps coming down the driveway. A bird chirrups loudly off in the woods somewhere.

He's still there. I bend down and touch his cheek. It's still warm. His glasses are only slightly off the mark. I just can't get over how relaxed he looks. He never once, in my entire time of knowing him, had this much tranquillity on his face. This much ease. This much peace.

"Will, put some shoes on."

I look up, and see my poor mother standing above me, eyes red and puffy with tears, clutching a jacket around herself and holding out a pair of shoes and a jacket to me. I take them from her and slip them on. It's little comfort, but having her there is enough for now. She slides down the embankment and we sit down together, tucking the bottoms of our jackets under our butts to stay dry. She wraps her arm around me, and we huddle in the snow together for a long, long time.

"Mum," I say after countless moments.

"Son," she replies.

"Is he...this is dumb, but I just have to know...is he really dead?"I feel her ribs expand in a heavy, defeated sigh. "Yes, my love, he is." "How do you know?" Her face falls and she cries. I join in, unable to stop myself. We don't wail or keen, we just cry.

"When I got down here, he was gone. There was some snow in his mouth and I cleared it away. The tiniest bit of breath escaped, and that was it." "That was what?" "I don't know, my love. But he was gone." I had nothing to say in response, no comforting words, no spiritual guidance, no questions to satisfy my own curiosities. I was empty. I was certain right then that I would never be able to be full again. "Ah, Will," Mum said, sighing once more. "What do we do now?"