“It’s time for you to pay,” the nurse said in the dark.
Marie shifted nervously in the wheelchair.
“I have nothing for you to collect,” she said, forcing her voice not to falter.
A glow lit the room from above. The light gathered into a focused stream and showered down on Marie’s pregnant belly.
“I don’t like liars,” the nurse growled.
The nurse walked around the wheelchair and stood in front of Marie. She pointed at Marie, and Marie trembled violently. The trembling invaded every cell of her body. She wanted to plead for mercy, but the trembling had taken over her face, and she could not still her lips long enough to get any words out.
The nurse smiled as if satisfied with her effect on Marie. She took Marie’s hand and leaned over until she was eye-level with Marie.
“Do you want to push?” she asked gently.
Marie shook her head, defiance burning in her eyes. The nurse extended two fingers and placed them on the side of Marie’s neck. Marie’s body jackknifed back, then she fell forward. Bent over her knees, she began to wail, but she could not form words. Her teeth chattered, and even her arms began to feel numb.
“It’s time to push,” the nurse said, her gravelly tones cloaked in cool professionalism.
The nurse grasped Marie under her arms and eased her to the floor. She manipulated Marie’s legs so that each knee was bent and each foot was flat on the floor. Marie squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her entire body as tightly as she could. The nurse walked around Marie and squatted behind her. She hooked her hands under Marie’s armpits and hoisted her into a birthing position.
Marie took deep gulping breaths to keep nausea at bay. Her gaze skittered around the room. It was empty—the room—with no furnishings, no windows, and only one door. The walls glowed faintly in the dim light. Marie latched onto the floor tiles, losing herself in the pattern they made—a chaotic series of snaking lines that curved this way and that. When the floor went blurry, she knew another contraction had found her. She tensed her body, hoping to hold the baby in. When the blurriness passed, Marie heard the plink of dripping water and the raspy, ragged breathing of the nurse licking at her ear. She thought of Steven, desperately wishing that he was by her side.
Instantly, as if triggered by her thoughts, dancing lines of light illuminated the walls of the room. The light was everywhere, as if being reflected by a pool of water, but there was no water—only the old nurse’s rasps, Marie’s pain, and the sound of dripping. The light on the walls twisted and undulated, twining to form images, and then unraveling into random patterns. For a few, brief seconds, the lines joined to become Steven—a frozen expression of false bravado contorting his face. The lights scattered, then rejoined to form the contours of the midwife’s face. Both she and Steven were looking down.
The light built into a shimmering glow that was so powerful that Marie had to look away. When the lines took shape again, she realized that Steven and the midwife were looking down at her. She was lying on a surgical bed, and there was a curtain over her chest. Past Steven, she could see the doctor leaning over the lower half of her body, intently operating on her. Anger exploded within at the same instant that another contraction ripped through her. She yelled, the rage bursting out of her in wild, uncontrolled waves.
The nurse’s voice rang out in her mind.
“Push!!”
Suddenly it was too late not to push. She couldn’t pull back her rage quickly enough. A ripple took hold of her torso and, before she could control it, it squeezed its way down to her hips.
“Noooooooooo,” Marie yelled, tears slipping out of her eyes. The nurse laughed and let Marie go. Marie whimpered, then crumpled to the floor.
Marie felt a stroking on her forehead, accompanied by a soft whispering. When she opened her eyes, Steven kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand. From somewhere in the room, she heard a dull thumping followed by a soft sucking sound. Then she heard three people counting in unison. “One, two, three, four…”
She tried to sit up but she couldn’t feel her legs. She grabbed onto Steven’s arm. “The baby?”
Steven turned away from Marie and clenched his jaw. “The umbilical cord,” he muttered, “was wrapped around his throat.”
An icy dread dripped into Marie’s heart. “Is he…”
“They’re trying… they’re trying to bring him back.”
Steven’s face was wet with tears. Marie felt moisture on her face too, but she lacked the energy to fully cry. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a slow-moving shadow gliding by. She turned her head and saw the old nurse, creeping toward the door.
“Time of death?” someone asked from the corner of the room.
Steven’s body shuddered as he broke under the weight of his grief. No emotion flickered over Marie’s face. She simply stared into the empty air where she could see the woman from the crossroads, protectively cradling a ghost baby—Marie’s baby—cooing at the infant as it lay nestled in the crook of her cruel arms.
Ancient, Ancient
The lamppost shimmered. Asima blinked.
“So what’s this big secret you been keeping from me?” Roger asked and flicked the flame on his lighter.
Asima didn’t respond. She stared across the street at the lamppost. Had the metal really moved before her eyes? An unlit cigarette hung from her dry lips. Roger held the flame steady before her mouth.
“Well, ain’t you gonna light up?” he said. “My finger hurts.”
Asima didn’t answer.
“Damn,” Roger said and let the lighter drop to the ground. He shook his hand then looked at his fingers. Ridges from the lighter had cut into his skin, the flesh of his thumb was red.
“You’re such a baby,” Asima said. She rolled her eyes and pushed past him.
He bent down and scooped the lighter up from the concrete.
“Asima, where you going? Asima?”
Asima didn’t look back. She skittered across the street and stopped in front of the lamppost. She was standing before it with crossed arms willing it to move when Roger walked up behind her.
“What you doing, girl?”
Asima opened her mouth to respond, but no words—only sound—came out. Roger jumped back; Asima clapped her hand over her mouth. The lamppost undulated again—in laughter, it seemed.
“Did you see it?” Asima wanted to ask, but what came out her mouth was: “rrrrrraaaaaaauuuuuuugggggggggghhhhhhhhh.”
In the migration of ants, there is always one that can be distracted. One whose biological imperative hiccups, if only for a moment, and allows it to wander off the track, into some new delight or danger. What would call you from your daily grind? A herd of wildebeest thundering down the street during rush hour?
The movement of metal?
I can feel the magic surging through me now. It is electric, kinetic. It pumps through this form I’ve entered. It is good.
Asima stumbled backwards, but she did not pull her hand from her mouth. Roger lurched toward her, reaching out to help her. She looked at him, light bursting from her pupils. She felt something horrible tearing through her bones. She dropped her hand from her mouth to warn Roger to stay back, and the sound spilled out again: “rrrrrraaaaaaauuuuuuugggggggggghhhhhhhhh.”
In the migration of ants, the one that wanders off, away from the snaking line of workers, is the one who tastes honey. Is the one who climbs a blade of grass. Is the one who drowns.