STOP
The 8th
I am awake. The table under me is cold. My hands are cold. My feet are ice. Sensation fills my stomach. My heart races and plummets. I try to scream but it gets caught in me. I faint.
When I come to a nurse rolls in the room. Her tracks glide soundlessly over the linoleum. I am in a hospital bed. Bandages cover my head. They wrap around my neck like a serpent. I feel him. He is forcing me down. It feels like I will drown in the blankets. His scent suffocates me. His hands pulse around my throat. They tighten. I start to choke. His face fills my vision. The scream arises and this time it escapes. The nurse is at my side. There is a prick in my arm and the world goes dark. I fall down, in a deep dreamless sleep.
"We have chosen for you." The doctor beeps to me.
"Chosen" I repeat the word. The "n" feels gummy on my tongue.
"Yes, chosen the egg. It grows now. This is for the best. We know."
"Best for who?" I ask
"For the whole." His monotonous voice unrolls.
"Fuck the whole." I spit out.
"Is that a threat?" His detector beeps red.
"Take it as you will or don't take it at all. I could really care less."
"DO NOT attempt self harm or you will suffer. Here is your medication. We will be checking on you daily. Goodnight."
"We are not done....." But the words no longer come and neither do thoughts as he pushes the button and I nod off.
This time the dreams come in a flurry. Drinks served to me. Dances. Flashes of teeth. A gripping smile. An eye that holds the promise of danger. I cannot meet it. A stranger to me. Tracks in the snow, silent and slow, soft crunches under my feet. I drop my key. The door is open. Someone pushes me. I fall to my knees. The door closes. He throws me to the bed and his hands grip my neck as he pries open my legs.
I scream my self awake. I am covered in sweat. I claw at my stomach.
"GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT!" The track loops.
The doctor rolls in beeping at full blast.
"We will keep you asleep if you cannot control yourself."
I weep. "Please don't, the dreams, I can't..." I crave a human to speak to. This pale metallic man cares not for me.
"Do as we say and you will be ok." He responds.
The glass door slides shut and I am alone. I look around. I see the ground. I see a cradle. I see walls. A camera peers down at me mockingly. A clock on the wall reads 9:11. I don't know if it is night or day. There are no windows, only harsh white lights.
My stomach grows while my ankles tighten. The cold feeling never leaves my hands. The days slip by and I cannot tell what is real. The dreams or now. I do not know where I am. Or who I am. I wish to die sometimes. Other times I feel nothing at all. As I gain strength they bring me tea. I hear the water boiling in the room next to me. I cry when I drink it and I cry when I don't. They feed me powdered food. It is supposed to be nutritious. It makes my teeth hurt. How long will I exist like this? Why am I here? These questions never quite leave my head. They bounce around and make my eyes burn.
A nurse slides into the room. The screen displayed on her midriff turns on. "How to Raise a Family" flashes across the screen. There are 90 episodes. We watch one every other day. I have become two. There is nothing I can do. We have chosen for you sounds in my head, often. A thought pops in like vibrations on a phone. The year is 2048. This is known. Where did the thought come from? Within me I suppose. I have never felt so alone.
The nightmares lose their vividness due to the medicine I receive within my powdered food. I no longer smell him on my skin. My flesh still crawls at random times but some days I feel ... fine. The videos count down. Other than that I take inventory in my head. I try to piece together how I got to this bed. It hurts my brain, like I am lying on a cold floor and the back of me may spill open if I open my eyes.
As long as I am not hurting us no one speaks to me. The doctor visits don't stop. He slides in, checks for wounds and runs vitals. This takes three minutes. Tea time is four. Food is ten. I would rather be dead but something pounds in my chest, breathing me, urging me on.
They allow us to walk the room. The food makes me weak at the knees. I eat because I have to, if I don't the dreams will return vividly. I try but cannot look away from the screen. It sucks the life out of me. Tension builds to no end. I spin in circles. Seven steps around the room. Soon the pulse in my stomach says, SOON.
"Breathe, get under it, you got this."
I don't know what helps more, the gentle encouragement, or the fact that it is a real person gripping my hand, guiding me. The smell of sage wafts to my nose. It reminds me of a life before, of healing and connection. I grab the hand with a death grip. It is my only salvation.
"Push." she says.
"I am pushing!" I scream.
Tears and spit flow down my face freely. I feel my skull split open. Every sense of being flows down the drain. Fear, exhaustion, existence is no more. None of it can be explained. It is a nameless place. Pain elevates, I ride the escalator to Hell. My neck grows rigid. Sounds come from within me, inhuman sounds. I push till I pass out. I rise from the dead and push again. The game is a never ending carnival ride and it is only beginning.
Something slips out of me. The separation is fulll of unreleased relief, for as we part, I know I will never let go. I will always be empty. I will wake up asking, what is missing? I reach but it is too late. My hands fall to the side, groping air. The bundle has been taken outside. I hear soft bleated cries grow softer. I try to rise. A cold pale steel hand pushes me down on the bed. My nightmare come to life. They place a strap around my neck. The leather cuts off my breath. More pale hands appear. They chant as they attach binds across my naked body.
"We have chosen for you. We have chosen. We have chosen for you. We have chosen. We have chosen for you. We. Have. Chosen."
The cries of the bundle get further away as mine rise to meet them.
I am wheeled down the hallway. The wheels go clack click along to the hum of the air conditioner. I pass through swinging double doors. I snarl at my attendants. I am stopped. Restrained to the bed they shower me down. My hair wraps in ringlets around my head.
I am held three days. Stuck in place. On the third they kick me to the curb. I slide down a chute and arrive on the concrete. I look up at the grey sky. A paper flutters down. It reads
"We deem you unfit to raise a life. Goodbye."
