The 22nd century

 A friend of mine’s son appears to be gay. My friend loves his son and secretly hates gay men, although some of his close friends are gay men. My friend is a football fan, played football in Pop Warner, broke a few teeth, his own and others, broke a leg, was really too small for the sport, but overachieved until concussions made playing impossible. Aggressively he pursued the arts instead, wrote stories about physical oppression and unlikely heroes. His stories were very funny and bleak and thin; they lacked humanity, they smirked. He himself had a complexed need to overachieve as a man, to please his own father, who is dead and even if he were alive would never admit to being pleased, a creature of the mid-20th century, his son, my friend, bridging the gap between centuries, would simply help his father to his feet, try to make him a hero; while the grandson, the truth teller, the young boy who appears to be gay, will someday shine, have sons of his own, and life on earth in the late 21^st century will be so much his, so different, and his children, our children's children, will be afraid of nothing.