She lay there, thrown on her soft, yellow sheets, clutching hard onto the wholesome red cushions that sat beside her. The room was silent and dimly lit, the only sound being the continuous monotonic grunt of the old air-conditioner. Over the tears that rolled down her cheeks, staining the light yellow of her bedspread, she thought fleetingly about getting that dammed mechanised breeze-blower fixed. Absolute peace? More like obsolete peace. But it wasn't the AC's fault. The voices in her head relentlessly spoke like dramatic mike tests, giggling and laughing as though mocking her weakness, translated into sobbing. They only made her cry harder. She was almost breathless, her cushion drenched. She lifted her swollen, red, moist face up and looked around.
Was weeping a sign of weakness and cowardice? Was she really not as bold as she wanted to be? But why did this process of leaking from one's eyes, feel so emancipating? She justified it to herself saying the tear-shed will lift her out of pain and give her the energy to fight it.
She got out of bed, splashed water on her face, stared into her own bloodshot eyes. She could not hide her true state, by blaming it on cutting onions. Insert shrill sound of a car horn. On wiping her face with an extra-absorbent turkey towel, she gulped down half a bottle of water and stepped out.
There she saw him standing with a look of anxiety on his face.
"Why did you call me in such a hurry? What is the matter? Why are your eyes so puffy? Your face is pale! Oh, Lord.. Your nose is red! Wha-"
"STOP!"
His mouth half open, he stood there, searching her face for answers.
After ten excruciating seconds of silence she finally spoke.
"I'm pregnant."
Now it was his turn to look pale. She wanted to walk away to give him some time alone, so he could process the information. But as she turned to go, he grabbed her arm and gripped tight, piercing his fingers into her skin.
"I am not the father. You understand?"
"But you are."
"No. Memorize this. I. Am. Not. Your. Child's. Father."
"Are you accusing me of being unfaithful?"
"Whatever the hell it's called. There is NO part of me inside you!"
She knew that persistence would only pay in his bursting a vein, so she simply stood, waiting. He shuffled about, fidgeting, looking more edgy than a nervous pre-school kid, just about to ascend the stage to deliver his very first speech. She laughed inside, at the comparison.
"Get rid of it. I'm not paying bills, running to the hospital or lying to people about why my girlfriend is putting on so much weight, all of a sudden."
"I am not killing my first child. I am going to come clean about it to my mother this evening. She will erupt, but she knows that at the end of the day, it's another human being growing inside of me. She won't abandon me. I'll take care of this child on my own. I've seen this scene in movies, read it in books. You know. The whole breaking-the-news-to-the-father routine. I just didn't think it would be the exact same enactment in reality too."
"You can't raise that thing on your own. You need me"
"I did the only thing a woman can't do on her own, with you. Conceive. Leave the rest of it to me."
She took a few steps away, did a graceful one eighty degree turn and said "And by the way, that "thing" happens to be your child. Your insides are inside me, deny it all you want. They are making another person in there. A real goddam person."
She felt satisfied at how dramatically choreographed her parting lines were.
A real goddam person. That he helped make. It began to sink in. He loved her. But now he felt a sudden emerging love for something that did't exist just yet. Something that felt like a physical part of him; as if his own arm had grown into a new life form. A bittersweet excitement. He felt like cutting his own tongue off for saying those disgusting things to her. For saying those awful things about his own, little new human, just a few months away from slipping its button-sized, cotton soft hands into his fatherly grip. He had to stop her. He had to tell her he would be there for every inch her stomach grew.
He turned around with a smile.
"Hey, lis-"
THUD. Her body flew and skid, stopping right at his feet.
The loud sound of vehicle horns, punctuated with yelling voices. The sight of her face scraped, covered in blood. The gathering crowd.
The scene faded into a dizzy blur...
