I read the news and it feels like the late 1980s all over again. The US and Russia are signing arms reduction treaties, Iranian leaders are pledging to destroy the world, and in places we can barely name or find on a map men are trying to kill each other.
The cycle of life continues. Or death, as the case may be.
And I seem to have accidentally discovered a perfect solve. A weapon so unrelenting in its assault, so diabolical in its execution, and so far beyond conventional means that it would clear the world’s battlefields and make us all obsessed with our own survival instead of ending someone else.
Into the hotspots of the world we drop one thing.
Screaming Infants.
Sure, you’re thinking that’s horrific. And cruel. And will probably make the babies shit themselves. But, if you’ve been following along then you know this would only increase their viability as the perfect weapon.
Imagine their little tiny parachutes and their mini-sized fatigues. Women everywhere would suddenly become fascinated with war! The heretofore unused sentence “Look at his cute little combat boots” would ring out in every tongue.
But the men, the hardened soldiers on the world’s war-fronts, would find themselves wholly unequipped to handle this new threat. Because, of course, you don’t want to kill an infant to stop its crying. The bomb squad can’t disarm it. Air support won’t come in and strafe it. And you can’t tie a bomb to some teenagers chest and say anything at all to convince them to get closer to the screaming.
No. The universal response to this unstoppable glass-shattering shriek of unhappiness is to find a place where you can no longer hear it. Leave the trench. Go home. Forget what you were fighting for if you can only find a way to regain peace and quiet.
Infant screaming drowns out all other sounds, so any new orders would never get heard. Enough exposure causes an odd zoned-out state where the brain itself retreats into the far corners of the skull leaving behind only enough motorskills to maintain whatever task it was doing last.
That’s why young parents can stand in a corner shushing in a baby’s ear and rocking back and forth for four hours. That’s not dedication or patience, it’s the human equivalent of autopilot.
Once, as I rocked my son and he bellowed in my ear at one constant volume I forgot where I was. I had enough balance to continue bobbing up and down on an exercise ball but nothing else. My wife came in to relieve me, took one look, and said … “What’s wrong with you, you look like you’ve been through a war…”
Which brings me back to my point.
A rain of infants. Just think of it. Like the Normandy invasion in diapers. Steely veterans of the world’s hotspots would turn and run screaming to get away from the sight. Cause let’s be honest, men join the military to smoke, drink, tease the shit out of each other, play cards, watch porn, and pick up some random girl in a bar. And of course… walk around with a loaded weapon. All things you can’t do when a baby is around.
John Lennon got it wrong. We must imagine an invasion of screaming infants. That’s the way to world peace. Brought to you by Pampers.
Pacification indeed.