I held my newborn son, no more than three weeks old, at 2:17 AM by the glow of the nightlight shaped like a sleepy bear. He was finally quiet after an hour of relentless crying, his tiny head nestled perfectly under my chin, smelling of milk and that particular, indescribable baby scent. I’d been swaying by the window, counting the faint blinks of the streetlamp across the way – one, two, three blinks every seven seconds – and then it hit me. A flash, a truly appalling thought, like a shard of ice in my mind: *drop him.* Just… let go. See what happens. The window was open a crack, a cool breeze stirring the curtain, and I saw the pavement below, five stories down. It wasn't a desire, not exactly, more like a sudden, horrific *option* that presented itself, fully formed and terrifying, even as my arms tightened around him, squeezing him almost painfully close. We talk about the protective instinct, don’t we? How it's hardwired, primal, absolute. And for most of my life, I believed it. I certainly felt it when I watched my son being born, a fierce, overwhelming surge that made me want to fight dragons for him. But then there are these moments, these dark, unbidden incursions, that make you question everything you thought you knew about yourself. What is that impulse? Is it some ancient, broken circuit in the human brain, a brief glimpse into the abyss we all carry somewhere within? Or is it something more particular to the profound, soul-crushing exhaustion of being a full-time parent, isolated in a house that used to feel like *mine*, now utterly taken over by tiny clothes and bottles and the constant, crushing weight of another life depending entirely on your frail, faltering self? My wife went back to work last week. She has her spreadsheets, her meetings, her adult conversations. I have… this. And the guilt that follows, like a shadow refusing to detach. How can I even *think* such a thing, about this perfect, helpless little creature I adore? It’s not that I want to hurt him. It’s the sheer *fact* that the thought arrived, uninvited, vivid, a grotesque little worm squirming in the corner of my mind. It makes me feel like a monster, a defective specimen of humanity. How many of us walk around with these secret, unspeakable thoughts, these brief flickers of madness that we immediately crush down, never daring to whisper them aloud? I sometimes wonder if we’re all just barely holding it together, a thin veneer of civility and normalcy over something truly feral and chaotic. And if so, what does that say about us? What does it say about *me*? I just kept rocking him, the streetlamp still blinking its regular rhythm, and eventually, the urge receded, leaving behind only the lingering, bitter taste of shame.