Life of birth

Sitting down wasn't as easy for her anymore. Her huge stomach made demands on her body that made it easy for her to either keep standing or sitting. She would have kept standing if wasn't for that insane throbbing at the base of her spine. As she lowered her weight, she let out a sigh of relief. It was a long day and she would be glad once it was over.

The end of the day would simply mean that it would bring the day of the birth closer by that one day. Absently she rubbed her fingers over the stretched skin of her stomach. The skin seemed to be stretched to an limit that seemed impossible. It had seemed impossibly stretched two months before, and now even though it seemed physically impossible, it had got yet more stretched. Ruefully her fingers trailed to the side of her stomach, Bunched there were the hateful stretch lines that seemed horrendously disfiguring in a mirror. At least to herself. She knew that the marks would be visible once the child came out, but at present nothing else mattered to her other then this thing in her stomach.

As her fingers traced the counters of her stomach, the baby responded from within. The movements were stronger then they had been a couple of weeks back and though sometimes it hurt, the possiblility of an alternative was too scary for her to contemplate. It never ceased to amaze her that an actual living entity was in her stomach. She didn't bother herself with the modalities of whether the entity had been called in there or if the entity had entered on its own free will. But one thing that was for certain was that once it came out in a few days time, it would be permanently linked to her by an indelible link that could never be erased.

As ever the fact of this indelible link scared her. The doubt inside her seemed to grow at a rate faster then her stomach. Would she do justice to her child? How would this entity kicking inside her now look at the world from her arms. As the entity left her arms and wanted to take steps into the world, where would she lead him? All the tears that she would have to wipe and all the tears that she would have to ignore - would she be able to choose these tears wisely? And what about her tears? the tears that she had already shed for this entity and the ones that it would inevitably demand - would it do justice to them?

But right now none of that mattered. All that mattered to her was the movement seperated by a tautly stretched skin. She shared everything with that movement. Her blood, her food and that desire to scream and kick her way out of its confines so that she could hold it at a distance much closer then it already was.

That day would come soon. In the meanwhile there were things to be done. Painfully she got up twisting and then pulling herself to her legs. The signal had changed and the cars were already starting to pile up. As she approached the first car, the woman behind the wheel saw her approaching and rolled up her window.

It was going to be a long day and she would be happy once it was over.