Week One
I am here. I don’t know where I am, but I know that I am here. This place is big, but I can see all of it. I peer around and see the edges, the corners of this place, but it is round, and glowing red. I know that I am trapped. This fluid I am wrapped within presses down hard on me. I feel it smother me, I am suffocated by intense warmth. I yawn, and roll onto my back, floating along. I do not know why I am here.
Week Four
This place never changes. The glow remains bright. I want a difference.
But I can’t see anything else. Instead, I sleep.
Week Eight
The corners of this place feel closer. I want to reach and touch what’s keeping me here. I think I am growing. I think I am growing in this place, and that is why I am here. I look down and I see that those lumps are extending away from my body, and becoming smaller. There are many of them. I stare at them.
I hear a voice, it echoes in the distance but I know it is close. I can’t make it out. I want to know what it is.
Week Nine
I hear a beating. Lub dub. Lub dub. Over and over. It never stops. It’s growing louder. I feel it move over me, shaking me with each beat. This sound mirrors a louder one; that echoes ferociously around me.
Suddenly, I am tipped upside down. I hear her retch, and I feel her muffled sounds and cries.
This place, it is within her. I am sure.
I fall into a heavy, long sleep.
Week Ten
Where I am has gone darker. Even when I am awake, I feel asleep. I roll into my favourite spot again, nestled in the fluid that rocks me slowly. My mouth forms a yawn, it escapes triumphantly from me.
I think of her. I try to, at least. She traps me, and she shields me in this blanket. She is loud now. I hear crashing and silence. I wait, but no sounds come. I bring my knees closer to me.
I sleep through my life.
Week Eleven
I am startled and suddenly awake. Voices rattle just above me, I am eager to listen.
“What do you want to do about this?”
I cower, but I know I have no-where to go.
“I don’t know,” I can hear her saying. I feel her hand glide across her stomach, edging closer to me.
“Well, you need to know.”
“It doesn’t feel right to get rid of it.”
“Why? You don’t want it. I don’t want it. We definitely don’t need it.”
Who is it?
Week Thirteen
I bring my thumb to my mouth and I suck on it. I wriggle through this space, and my hands reach through this place of warmth. Soon I will be able to touch the wall, I hope. I bring my hands to my face, and they glide over it all. I can feel how it changes as my hands travel over it. It is soft, but firm, like this fluid I am laying in. I distract myself all day. I finally let go.
Then I squeeze my palms together. Over and over again. It is all I can do. For now.
Week Fourteen
I hear them again. His voice echoes around me, while hers is soft and makes me drowsy. It grows warmer in here again, her arms are covering her stomach, wrapping around me.
“Make a decision! Or I’ll make it for you. We don’t want it.” He roars through the distance.
“Get out!” She protests.
It is me.
Week Seventeen
She is lying in something that is warm. When she moves, I feel my body sway effortlessly. I press my toes to reach her, longing to feel her touch. The warmth keeps growing, as I feel something trickle above me. It tickles.
I know where I am now. I know why I am here, too. I am here to grow for her.
Week Nineteen
I know she can feel me moving now, because when I touch her, her warmth finds me. I move quickly, and press against her.
But she is shaking now, and her hands don’t find her stomach like they usually do. I am rolled over as she shakes. I hear his voice again, but it is as though he is speaking into his hands. I cannot hear what he is saying. I do not want to hear.
Week Twenty
The shaking has started again. I feel her move quickly and my body bobs up and down in here. I move my legs and arms too, with as much force as I can muster. I press hard against the surface of the wall. I move as though I never have before. Her hands trace where mine are. I feel her, and I know she feels me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to me.
*
I am here. I don’t know where I am, but I know that I am here.
