The Babysitting Classifieds of Orbital Station Eltanin-12
(Collected, Annotated, and Redacted by the Gravitational Information Bureau, Deck 19)
It started small: one neat rectangle of text wedged between death tolls from the mining colony riots and the daily lottery numbers for the station’s oxygen allocation.
An ad, polite and unassuming:
AD #1 – WARM-BLOODED COMPANION NEEDED. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. BRING OWN MOP.
Submitted by Mizzurri Family Unit #32.
The hatchling lived in a bathtub of beige custard. The sitter’s job: stir occasionally, remove anything that floated, avoid screaming.
Two previous sitters had been “playfully tasted” and one was now, technically, part of the infant’s digestive system—an honor in Mizzurri culture. Payment was small pearls extruded from the baby’s gill slits, which pulsed in your hand like they were thinking about you.
The successful candidate lasted nine hours and went home smelling of nutmeg, muttering, “The mop wasn’t for the floor.”
AD #2 – LARVAL CLUTCH NEEDS FLAME-RETARDANT NURSE. NO STRONG PERFUMES.
Submitted by Thorr-Keeper Clan Nest 5.
The larvae lived inside hollowed-out accordions. The sitter had to pump air into them to prevent collapse, playing only pre-approved minor-scale lullabies.
One sitter played jazz. The larvae wept molten resin that ate through Deck 7’s oxygen conduits. The “no perfumes” rule came after a lilac-scented sitter accidentally triggered mass mating behavior, which was “educational” but expensive.
AD #3 – CAN YOU DEFINE LOVE? CAN YOU TEACH IT TO SOMETHING WITH TWELVE HEARTS?
Submitted by Ch’ro Maternity Pod.
A dripping chandelier in a diaper. Twelve hearts, each with a different emotional register: longing, boredom, resentment, nostalgia, pity, hunger, curiosity, rage, smugness, shyness, melancholy, and “untranslatable.”
Sitter duties: harmonize the feelings to prevent “polyphasic discord,” which could rupture the baby and the sitter. Payment: a personal symphony composed in your own childhood memories.
AD #4 – WANTED: TUTOR FOR AN INFANT WHO WILL DIE IF IT LEARNS THE TRUTH ABOUT ITS OWN SPECIES.
Submitted anonymously.
The baby looked like a ceramic teapot with blinking eyes. It asked constant questions. All answers had to be lies.
One sitter slipped and explained what a shadow was. The child convulsed with existential grief. The sitter’s name was erased from all records and replaced with That One.
AD #5 – SOMEONE WHO WON’T NOTICE.
No image. No address.
“Crib provided. Duration: until you stop perceiving it.”
A man from Deck 12 took the job. He is still occasionally seen, staring at something invisible, smiling faintly. When asked, “What crib?”, he walks away.
By the second month, the section was attracting weirder clientele.
AD #6 – EXPERIENCED HYPNOTIST WANTED FOR TEMPORARY INFANTAL REGRESSION OF AN ANCIENT GOD.
Submitted by Temple of the Third Forgetting.
The baby was 900,000 years old and re-living infancy for tax reasons. Sitter required to speak pre-cosmic sighs—a language of inhaled regrets and reversed exhalations.
A prior sitter reminded the god-baby of a universe it had destroyed. Witnesses saw “all the colors of despair” pour out of its crib. The sitter is now a small moon.
AD #7 – SITTER NEEDED FOR A BEING WHO IS YOUR FUTURE SELF.
Submitted by Chrono-Parenting Division.
The job: care for yourself, two years older, without influencing the timeline.
Failures included warning about bad investments or hair loss. The successful sitter ignored themselves entirely and was rewarded with “the gift of not knowing.”
AD #8 – TEMPORARY GUARDIAN FOR INFANT WHO AGES TO ADULTHOOD EVERY NIGHT AND FORGETS IT BY MORNING.
Submitted by House of Rapid Oscillation.
By 19:03 each night: teenager.
By 19:45: adult.
By 21:10: midlife crisis.
By 23:00: senile stranger.
Applicants needed to nurture and endure being sued in the same evening.
AD #9 – ASSISTANT NEEDED FOR SELF-ASSEMBLING FAMILY UNIT.
Submitted by Collective Gestation Cluster.
The baby did not exist yet. The sitter cared for future components: a broken lamp, a jar of cumin, seventeen guitar picks, and “the smell of wet aluminum.”
Misplace a part and the eventual infant would emerge defective. One sitter lost the smell—resulting in a child who could not recognize light.
AD #10 – CARETAKER REQUIRED FOR INVISIBLE INFANT WITH VISIBLE TEMPER TANTRUMS.
Submitted by Subspace Orphans’ Guild.
“You won’t see them. You’ll know they’re there when your thoughts start bleeding.”
No sitter has yet passed the exit interview, which involves describing the child in detail.
Then came the Confluence Issue.
AD #11 – LOST & FOUND: IF YOU HAVE CARED FOR ANY OF THE FOLLOWING, REPORT TO DECK 0.
From the Station Safety Authority (involuntarily):
- Chandelier baby in diaper.
- Future self cradle.
- Missing smell of wet aluminum.
- Possibly nonexistent crib.
Warning: “Do not reunite the children. They are unionizing.”
AD #12 – CO-OP SITTER POSITION FOR MULTI-SPECIES INFANT PLAYGROUP.
Seven babies from past ads were now together. The chandelier was playing cards with the invisible tantrum. The regressed god whispered political spoilers.
One sitter tried Ring Around the Rosie. The children changed the ending. The sitter will not explain how.
AD #13 – WANTED: EDITOR FOR CHILDCARE CLASSIFIEDS.
Submitted by The Bulletin Itself.
“We know we are placing these ads. We know we are writing ourselves. We request someone to look after us. We are two days old and also 87 years old. Bring puree.”
By now, the Bulletin refused all non-babysitting content.
AD #14 – CARETAKER WANTED FOR ALL FUTURE BABIES.
“Must be comfortable working outside linear time. Tasks: soothe beings not yet conceived; apologize for mistakes humanity won’t make for 6,000 years.”
Rumor: the man from Deck 12 took the job. Seen rocking an empty cradle, smiling at something un-happened.
AD #15 – END OF LISTINGS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.
Signed by All Infants Everywhere:
“We are grown now. We will watch over you. Sleep well.”
The next issue contained no ads—just a blank page. Some swore that if you stared at it long enough, you could feel yourself being babysat.
My Other Car is a Robot 
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