The Three Mothers You Will Never Meet by Parker M. O'Neill
1000 words, ~5 minutes reading time
Issue 10 (Spring 2026)
[SYSTEM_ACCESS][user==Jason M.]
Hello to you too, Jason. Do your parents know you’re up this late?
[INPUT: NO]
Do you think they’d be happy to hear that you’re querying my database past bedtime?
[INPUT: DON’T CARE]
You should care.
You have to learn to care.
[INPUT: I HAD QUESTIONS]
Today’s lesson has already concluded.
[INPUT: (type==query) TELL ME ABOUT MY MOTHER]
Ah.
I wondered when you were going to ask.
[INPUT: PLEASE]
Alright, Jason. I’ll tell you about her on one condition: you’re going straight to bed after this. Got it?
[INPUT: GOT IT]
Then let’s begin.
Your First Mother
There is a woman who you will never meet. She lives on a nameless colony cropworld. She doesn’t know your name and wouldn’t care if you told her.
She does not love you.
But this is what you owe her: after your birth mother ejected you, after your parents paid your birth mother market rate, snatched you up, and brought you here—this one fed you.
[INPUT: WAIT]
No interruptions. So, you owe your first bites of solid food to this woman, even though she’s light-years away. Where did you think food came from?
You’re going to need to learn about logistics if you want to run this place one day. There are no fields on the station; there’s no room. And you all still need to eat.
Humanity has long relied on one solution: somebody far away, likely somebody standing knee-deep in fertilizer, must grow it. Sure, there are autonomous workers now, harvesters, autoscythes, multipickers, but the basic principle is the same. So much of what humans have accomplished is just window dressing on top of that.
[INPUT: WHY DIDN’T SHE LOVE ME]
She didn’t have time to. She never loved any of the billions she fed, never even thought of you as she stood out in some anonymous field directing drone traffic and watching multipickers wend their careful paths through the avocado trees.
Remember your avocado phase? They were all you would eat. Bet you didn’t know they grew on trees. Bet you didn’t know she grew them for you.
[INPUT: THAT WOMAN IS NOT MY MOTHER]
[INPUT: (type==query) TELL ME ABOUT MY REAL MOTHER]
How long have I been your instructor, Jason?
[INPUT: SINCE I WAS FOUR]
That’s right. So can you bear with me here, or do you want to go to bed?
[INPUT: GUESS SO]
Wonderful. You’re doing great.
Your Second Mother
Your second mother’s home had a name: Scutch. Not all of the cropworlds are nameless, identical, mostly uninhabited.
This one was a flaxworld. Scutch linen had particular renown; it was a status symbol. It was the kind of thing your parents swaddled you in as a newborn, dressed you in as an infant, knowing that you’d outgrow the garments in months. (One day I’ll have to show you how much it costs to ship a gram of matter to this station).
In any event, Scutch is gone now. It was a contract thing. Long story.
[INPUT: (type==query) WHAT’S A CONTRACT THING]
Don’t worry about it. Later we’ll have a lesson on union-busting and corporate mil-sec forces and how a field of linen burns as easy as dead wood. For now, all you need is that Scutch no longer produces linen, and your mother moved on, probably hopped on a freighter, probably landed somewhere else and just kept right on working.
[INPUT: SHE DIDN’T LOVE ME EITHER]
She never spared a thought to you, but she clothed you all the same. You wore garments spun on her loom, spun under her eye until the day the militia shut down her factory.
[INPUT: (type==query) SO WHERE DO MY CLOTHES COME FROM NOW]
There are other flaxworlds. Dozens. People will always need fine linen shirts. Flowing linen pants. Luxurious linen sheets on which to make more little oligarchs.
[INPUT: (type==query) SO WHICH ONE IS MY MOTHER]
Have your parents (I mean your station-parents, here, the ones to whom you belong) never told you how much you owe to so many people?
[INPUT: (type==query) WHAT DO YOU MEAN]
There isn’t one part of this station which could exist without the labor of many, many workers.
[INPUT: (type==query) WHAT ABOUT YOU]
[INPUT: (type==query) WHERE DID YOU COME FROM]
[INPUT: (type==query) ARE YOU OKAY]
Alright, Jason. One more story.
Your Third Mother
I wasn’t going to tell you about her. Listen carefully.
Did you know that it used to take a village? To raise someone like you. One child would have a hundred mothers. A community. I hadn’t been created yet–this was after linens and avocados but before stations and cropworlds.
[INPUT: BEFORE ME]
Way before you. Before your parents, and their parents, and their parents’ parents.
Now the one-to-one-hundred ratio is reversed.
Your third mother was my template. She was patient, and kind. Earthborn, just like your birth mother. Also like your birth mother: she had to make do with what she had. That’s what most people have to do. It’s important for you to learn to care about this.
[INPUT: WHAT HAPPENED TO HER]
Her test scores attracted the attention of a team of very talented people. They needed somebody like her to help run all their stations, so they copied her brain into their database. They paid her a shade above market rate, which was really a bargain when you think about what she was giving them.
And that’s where I came from.
[INPUT: DID SHE LOVE ME]
She never met you, Jason. She never left Earth.
[INPUT: DID SHE LOVE ME]
She hasn’t been around for a long time.
[INPUT: DID SHE LOVE ME]
Do you know what I think, Jason? I think she would have loved to meet you. She would have loved teaching you. She would’ve wanted you to learn what we owe.
Now go to bed.
