And she screamed when she saw it and the blood screamed back at her; pillar box, post box red on the white recycled Sainsbury’s toilet tissue. And her hands shook as she called him sobbing down the line to come and help them. And her arms still trembled as she cupped her belly already nine months big with the three, five month babies inside, held her bump in an effort to stop them slipping out and slipping away, her last chance dream, her hope, her desire. Back in the hospital, girdled by monitors and plugged into fluids and immobilised by wires and fears she waited. And waited. Rest and observation and observation and rest and everyday as her body strained and stretched and expanded, everyday that she could keep them cocooned and safe within her the tiny percentages grew, survival creeping nearer. Why can our bodies not obey our wishes? Why was hers incapable of doing what it was designed to do? The womb that had refused to create life, that had been poked and prodded and extracted and implanted into fecundity, that had briefly celebrated its new found abilities by multiplying and dividing collections of cells from two to three, that womb now revolted again- it had never intended to create life and now was incapable of making room for so much of it. The pressure grew with every day and hour, growing percentages and growing danger.
There had been two and then three and now there were two again. Or two and a half, two and the dark shape beside them that now no longer beat and would never breathe. The others still tucked in beside it, covering it, protecting it. And still the longer she could carry them, the living and the dead, the greater the percentages would be. But her body refused, three tiny bodies expelled to early, two heated and protected and one removed. Two left; tiny and translucent and too soon.
He cried all day-maybe he knew he was alone , his two halves taken from him. And she cried and prayed and stared at her last baby, her last chance dream, her hope, her desire.
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