BARREN
She is lucky, Beth knows. Lucky to have been artificially inseminated, lucky to be part of the trial program, lucky to no longer be barren. But she doesn’t feel lucky as she emerges from the examination room, where she catches her reflection in one of the mirrored columns of the waiting area and sees only frailty, qualmishness, infirmity.
Doctor Lairman talks as he escorts her out. He talks and talks, leaping from one subject to another like a bee pollinating summer dandelions. About human cloning and why it will never be an ethical nor practical solution to human infertility. About how it would require the sacrifice of too many failed embryos to achieve a single viable specimen. About the interior design of the clinic, which is too cold, he says—as they pass several other seated
