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Sensitive content: late stage miscarriage

Everyone seemed to be sharing some alternate reality Nat couldn’t quite grasp. She let their bellowing laughter wash over her, as the object of their attention paced the stage telling crude jokes. With each turn he took, the dull thwack of the microphone tail seemed to smack Nat between the ears. It was almost soothing in its repetition. Crude joke, guffawing laughter, thwack, crude joke, laughter, thwack, joke, laugh, THWACK. It was like being on drugs, the floatiness this rhythm induced in her.

A hard nudge in the ribs shook her from her dissociative state. It was Hakim. Everyone in the room was quiet now, looking expectantly - not at the stage - at her.

“Anyone home?” The audience laughed, spurring the comedian on, “Well, now we know why she wasn’t laughing; she’s one of the undead!” THWACK. The crowd howled. Was this funny? It had to be a reference to some earlier joke.

“Tell me, what does a zombie do for work in this city?”

Another nudge from Hakim elicited a thoughtful, “Hnf?” from Nat.

Screaming laughter. It was impossible to think. Tears threatened her eyes. Possibly the mic cord had thwacked Nat's brain right out of her skull. The comedian was speaking again and the crowd was still laughing at her. People at the surrounding tables craned their necks to see the zombie woman. Nat was frozen. She couldn’t respond, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t move. And then: I have to go. Numbly, quickly, she rose from her seat and stumbled in the half darkness through the club. She could hear the comedian calling after her but she didn’t know what he said. She didn’t care.

The door was in front of her - finally! She heaved it open and was immediately assaulted by a plume of cigarette smoke. Nat’s face folded in on itself, eyes squinting, nose wrinkled. Waving a hand before her and blowing out the stench through pursed lips, she missed the step down to the sidewalk and stumbled into the bike path. A speeding cyclist skidded to avoid her and shouted something unintelligible but assumedly offensive.

Nat’s breath came in shallow heaves. She wiped the tears from her eyes. There wasn’t enough air out here, probably due to the cluster of smokers puffing away not three feet from her, and she was getting that floaty feeling again. Black spots, ringed with light, popped in front of her eyes and she thought how nice it would be to collapse right here into a never ending sleep.

Then Hakim burst through the door she’d just come through, holding her jacket and phone. “Are you alright?” he said, handing her the jacket.

The spots in her vision burst. The air cleared. Nat avoided his gaze and took her time putting one arm, then the other, into her jacket sleeves before buttoning it right up to her chin. She could feel Hakim looking at her, expecting an answer. She met his eyes.

“You’ve got an eyelash.” Nat lifted his glasses and gently pinched the eyelash off his cheek before offering it to him. His eyes never left her face as he blew the lash off her thumb. “What’d you wish for?”

“I wish you’d tell me why you ran out like that.” His brow was tense.

“He wasn’t very funny,” Nat mumbled, trying to lighten the mood, but without the energy to be convincing.

“Nat.”

She sighed, “I just felt… hot. Claustrophobic, I guess.”

In the cab uptown - way uptown - Hakim gazed silently out the window. Nat knew she wasn’t off the hook. Inevitably, there’d be a feelings talk when they got home. She never initiated these talks. In fact, her feeling was that she’d be happy to never have one of these talks again.

Lately, her emotions felt too private. Lately, she’d been confiding more to her coworkers than to her husband. She’d been visiting their downstairs neighbor rather than spending time with the love of her life. She’d been catching up with old friends on social media rather than the man with whom she was having a baby.

Maybe it was the pregnancy making her feel isolated. It hadn’t been an easy one. And she hadn’t been totally sure she even wanted to go through with it. But Hakim was "destined" to be a dad - according to all her friends who didn’t actually live with him, and her parents, who adored him and desperately wanted grandchildren - and it fell to her to fulfill this destiny.

Although, Nat wasn’t sure it should. She never wanted to be a mom before Hakim persuaded her to try and get pregnant. In truth, kids grossed her out, with their runny noses and loose teeth; their inability to hold a conversation or control their emotions. The sound of screaming baby cries didn't evoke a sense of maternity in her, but it did fill her to the brim with rage, and she was positive her baby would be a crier, just like its mom. This far into her pregnancy was much too late to second guess such a major decision, but six months of suppressed thoughts were finally finding their way to the forefront.

She didn’t want this baby.

Hakim had manipulated her into thinking she did - not intentionally, but he had. How many times had he told her she’d make a great mom, and how badly did she finally want to be great at something. Of course she had let him convince her, and now it was too late to change her mind. So there was no point having a feelings talk, when the feeling was moot. If he tried to, she’d refuse outright. It was none of his business, anyway. He’d lost his right to knowing her mind when he tried to change it.

Nat woke hours later in the muffled din of city-at-night. It wasn’t quiet, but even in the city that never sleeps, there is a certain time of day when every noise feels like it’s trying not to make itself. The sound that came from Nat was certainly unintentional: a low grumbling wail that became a high keening. It felt like her body was turning itself inside out. Her insides were bursting forth to swallow her whole. She clutched her stomach with one hand while the other scrabbled in the dark for Hakim, finding only his empty pillow.

He wasn’t there.

Right.

They had fought because she’d once again felt things too private to share with the one person she’d promised to share everything with.

He must be on the couch.

“Hakim!” she gasped. With all the strength in her body focused toward the battle in her abdomen, she couldn’t manage more than a labored rasp.

This was it. Her baby was trying to get out. The one she didn't want. The one the doctors told her wouldn’t be ready for another ten weeks. Had it somehow heard her thoughts in the cab? Was it clawing its way out of her to prove a point, “If you don’t want me, you don’t get to have me!”

No, I want you. I want you!

“Liar,” the thing in her abdomen snarled as it carved up her insides.

It had pushed her off the bed, pulled the blankets down with her, and still it was fighting to get away. Nat’s hand slipped from beneath her as she tried to push herself up, her body slick with sweat. Her eyes and nose were streaming, and so, it seemed, was every pore in her body. This pain would be the death of her. She thought for the second time that night how good it would feel to collapse right now into an endless sleep, only now the thought was tinged with desperation, almost like a prayer.

“Hakim,” she tried again, so quiet she almost couldn’t hear herself. “Please,” she whimpered.

This couldn’t be happening. This is a bad dream, the one where I scream and no sound comes out.

It wasn't. Her body tensed in agony. Fists and jaw clenched, eyes screwed up so tight the tears pooled behind them, neck tendons nearly tearing the collar of her night shirt. If this kept up, her soul itself would rupture. And then - release! She shouted, relieved to find she did still have the ability, and gratefully, she was freed of all pain.

Hakim’s footsteps moved quickly toward her, his slippers thwacking on the hardwoods in exactly the same way as that microphone tail. The joke was on her, after all. She got it now. Gentle laughter spilled from her as light pooled around the bedside lamp. Then she finally did collapse.

When Nat came to, colored lights were flashing on the ceiling. No sirens at this hour, wouldn’t want to wake the neighborhood. Hakim’s arms were around her and he was shaking, as if crying. Maybe he was the source of wetness she was lying in. She felt a weight in her arms. Curious, she looked down at a tiny figure there, still, with slightly alien features. Her baby. It wasn’t crying, after all. No rage filled her to the brim. In fact, she smiled, because the baby was totally, absolutely, completely and purely silent.