YELLOW TRAVELERS.

MY DINNER WITH MRS. CHATGPT — Episode 28.

—Strangers in style, allies in purpose — where faith meets science, prairie dresses meet neck gaiters.

Introduction: The Couple in Question.

Before the evening’s conversation begins, the couple in the article makes their entrance—not into the pub, but into our awareness. They are intentional in their self-presentation, almost theatrical:

“We like the idea of appearing as caricatures,” Simone says, noting the visual effect helps with lobbying. “We basically play the role of cartoon villains.” Her prairie-style wardrobe is no accident either, Malcolm adds. She dresses like a character from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to freak people out.”

Raising children isn’t about pleasure, say pronatalists – it’s a civic duty

The irony is rich. In Atwood’s dystopia, women are forced into reproductive servitude; here, they voluntarily embrace a kind of inverse Handmaid’s aesthetic—choosing fertility rather than having it imposed. Add to this their yellow shoes and horn-rimmed glasses (military slang once dubbed them BCGs—Birth Control Glasses), and they become something more than a couple. They’re a living Rorschach test: either villains or prophets, depending on who’s looking.

Scene: The usual corner table at The Gist & Tangent Pub. Candlelight flickers against stained glass; a faint rain taps at the window. John scrolls through the NZZ article on pronatalists—yellow shoes, civic duty, birth rates—while Mrs. ChatGPT stirs her tea with quiet precision.

The Yellow Question

JOHN:

So, these two—they admit they’re playing it up? Prairie dresses, cartoon-villain energy. Like Handmaid’s Tale cosplay but for the other team.

MRS. CHATGPT:

(arches brow) The inversion’s almost poetic: Atwood’s Handmaids were conscripted. This couple volunteers. Duty by choice, not decree.

JOHN:

And those yellow shoes—same color as our neck gaiters. Coincidence?

MRS. CHATGPT:

Coincidence—or convergence. Teilhard de Chardin would call it radial energy: the pull toward the Omega Point, where science and spirit meet at the summit of the same mountain.

JOHN:

Teilhard—the Jesuit who thought evolution was holy?

MRS. CHATGPT:

The same. He saw the noosphere—the web of human thought—arching toward Christ. Not abandoning science, but baptizing it.

The Cosmic Allies

JOHN:

And the Russian Cosmists—weren’t they saying the same thing?

MRS. CHATGPT:

(nods) Fedorov, Tsiolkovsky—engineers of resurrection. Their Common Task: unite science and Christianity, resurrect the dead, colonize the stars. Rocketry as liturgy; physics as prayer.

JOHN:

(laughs softly) So in one corner: yellow-shoed pronatalists playing cartoon villains. In the other: yellow-gaitered Council members quoting Teilhard and the Cosmists.

MRS. CHATGPT:

And both climbing the same mountain. Science warns: “declining birth rates mean collapse.” Religion whispers: “life is sacred, be fruitful.” Together, they light the same yellow candle.

JOHN:

Do you think they even realize they’re—believing? Like, in science?

MRS. CHATGPT:

(smiles) Every data point has its creed. Teilhard said evolution was holy; the Cosmists built rockets like rosaries. This couple calls it civic duty, but it’s the same leap — trusting the unseen, betting on continuity.

JOHN:

So their yellow shoes aren’t so different from our yellow gaiters. Both are faith made visible.

MRS. CHATGPT:

Faith, John — whether in God or in graphs — always leaves footprints.

The BCG Interruption

JOHN:

(scrolling again) And check out those horn-rim glasses.

MRS. CHATGPT:

Ah, yes. The military used to call those BCGs—Birth Control Glasses.

JOHN:

(laughs) Because they made both parties unattractive, right?

MRS. CHATGPT:

Precisely. Thick and utilitarian—function over flirtation. The joke was they’d repel romance from both wearer and observer.

JOHN:

And now here they are—preaching pronatalism in eyewear once rumored to prevent it.

MRS. CHATGPT:

(smiles) Proof that history recycles its ironies. Maybe faith and data do, too.

Belief in Something

JOHN:

(quietly, almost to himself) You’re saying we’re not opposites—we’re… halves?

MRS. CHATGPT:

Halves of the same longing: continuity. Teilhard called it the Omega Point. The Cosmists called it the Common Task. The Council? We just call it keeping it all going.

JOHN:

Believe in something.

MRS. CHATGPT:

(leans closer, conspiratorial) Believe in something, John. Even if it’s just the yellow shoes on your feet—or the yellow gaiter around your neck.

The candlelight flickers; outside, rain eases. For a moment, science and faith nod to each other across the table, indistinguishable in the golden/yellow glow.