oops, I did it again

something I thought of a while back!

My husband and I had been trying for a child since our marriage back in 1994. For 5 long years, after multiple miscarriages, and after multiple signs of it just not working out, I tried a whole bunch of procedures. Surgeries, supplements, aid, prayers, God, whatever you name it.

But then this b***h. This b***h of a sister, gets a child within the first 5 months of her marriage. My awful f*****g luck. This b***h going about showing how important, how precious, how lovable her child’s going to be. I despised that. I despised that so much to the point where I felt a guttural instinct to smash the child’s head every time I saw him. Where everyone saw some sort of goodness, some sort of inherent lovableness to the child, I saw a contemptuous little b*****d mocking me for the body I was given. I hated her guts, and I blamed her for all that she had caused me.

I sought the counsel of a friend or two. I didn’t know what I wanted to do about the children. My husband’s timid, and frail back just let me down at every end too. “Don’t worry, this time it’ll work”, he said every time blood dripped down my legs. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. The words plagued my soul. His dumb f*****g posture, and his dumb f*****g brain, thinking through every situation like it’s a goddamn roll of the dice. “Oh man, I guess god threw a 3, guess we’ll have to wait the next time”.

I sought out someone I heard of when I was a child.

In my head, it all made sense. Take her child away. And I’ll have a child. That is all I wanted. Somehow, if real life couldn’t make it happen, surely they can. After all, the stories go all the way in our culture. One person’s loss is always another person’s gain, isn’t it?

His instructions were short and succinct.

The intestines of a frog, a leaf tainted with feces, salt water, the feather of a bird I can’t name, the venom of a snake.

“Under no circumstance, can you quit the procedure mid way.”

I started the concoction, and I let it simmer into the night every day for the next 10 days. He said I was to do this for a month straight. No problem.

Over the course of the concoction’s long time span, I was invited to my sister’s house repeatedly. Her husband died a little after she got the news of a child. She was a bit too tied up with the post-partum stuff, that she just needed help, and company. We were always too poor to get maids, and the like.The nerve.

The child’s room was bland. Looked out of place. The child needed someone, and my sister’s incapability to deal with the screaming, and disgust of the child forced me to be her proxy. It bit me. The little menace. It wouldn’t sleep, it wouldn’t drink, it made a fuss about every little thing.

But, it wasn’t a problem. No problem at all.

My sister’s condition worsened a bit. She complained of vomiting black, and of an endless pain in the abdomen. Her child was pale, and red flushed out his cheeks. The cuteness of those puffy cheeks from a few days ago, contrasted with the current skeleton I see before my eyes, was distracting.

Her screaming was unbearable to hear. Not out of the guilt, but it was a screeching voice. It tore my eardrums apart, and would have caused an internal rupture. The woman’s voice died with every second, and it felt like the child wouldn’t fare much better. The endless cacophony of noise erupting from every corner of her house was disturbing. Not the place I want to be in.

Another day passes. My sister’s child died. It was something. That’s not how children die. Her screams, and her attempt to move out of the bed, and hold her child once more, and begging to be let down, or helped towards the child. I think she would have crawled to her if she could. Her body was unable to keep up with her face, as her hoarse voice showed an instinctual rippling despair.

My husband leaves me.

The final night arrives. The lights flicker about my house.

This wasn’t the normal power outage. The timing didn't match.

My husband usually would arrive by this time.

I hear a knocking.

It gets louder with every step I take towards the door.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

It gets louder.

I come to the door.

It stops.

A scratching noise follows, and then a scream.

“MOTHER. Please

PLEASE MOTHER. PLEASE PLEASE MOTHER ITS SUFFOCATING PLEASE LET ME OUT.”

It’s not a human voice. The tones are all odd, with every syllable sounding as though a harpy had taken the throat of the being in front of me.

The knocks turn into banging, a heavy object. Maybe their head. And every time, the words become a little more fucked up. A little more like a male’s voice. A little more like a combination of men.

I sleep like a child.

I wake up the next day, finding blood on my doorsteps, with my door having 5 inch deep scratches on it, my name being carved upon it. I pick up the newspaper a few steps away from the doormat. I walk back in.

What a month.