Entry #16

Dilutions
by Scott Ennis


Contractions were wrong after only eight weeks, but that was what the drug was designed to do. Regardless, eight weeks or eight months, contractions marked the end.

Carin bore down and grabbed the porcelain rim of the toilet as the tight spasm inside her squeezed again like an angry octopus. Her response to the sudden wave of pain was a low, animal grunt and the simultaneous release of ambiguous tears from both eyes. The dead fetus inside her also released and fell into the water-filled basin in a warm rush of blood and bits of flesh. Carin drew her left hand across her tears and flushed the toilet with her right hand.
***
Grief is an idiot in a philosophy class; it listens without understanding and speaks without reason.

Carin spoke to Grief of how deserving she was of a child, how much love she had to give. Grief responded by pouring another glass of Shiraz from a dwindling bottle. The wine glistened like diluted blood.

In vino veritas, her Grief asserted.

We’ll see, Carin replied.

The answerless ceiling spun overhead and a painful wave of nausea pushed Carin into the bathroom. Bleary-eyed, she cradled the toilet in her arms and stared briefly into water tinged wine-like with the residue of earlier blood. Carin vomited heavily into the basin bringing unambiguous tears to her eyes. She wiped her face with her right hand and flushed with her left. Beside her kneeling legs a wine bottle lolled: lifeless, empty.

You lied.