It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
Sunday evening, the Carnival
Full moon's waning now, an' with it my bleeding's slowly, same as usual, ayuh. 'Cept this month my bleeding didn't come on, cos I was having a baby. Woke up Friday, turning my head toward a cry of a baby that didn't come, an' found my period had already started, that I was wearing the rags stuffed into my undahwear same as always. An' it made me wondah - what happened to us in the days we was away? Was theah anothah us, or did we not exist for three days? Don't know what ansah would make me feel bettah. Breasts ache like they'ah full of milk, but they ain't.
Called my son-daughtah Abzu, for the watah that rises out of the ground, surprising the world.
Don't miss her; he wasn't evah mine to have. It ain't how I am. What I was for three days was someone else. An' that me who ain't me loved Abzu, an' I remembah how it felt so well, like an ache. But it's an ache I can keep aside. I don't want to have Abzu, cos that would mean I was something altogetah different than I know, an' aftah this many thousand yeahs I don't think I can handle that kind of change. But I hate thinking Abzu was undone. All life is precious, an' I had him an' she was perfect, an' for her to have nevah been - that's a sacrilege, blasphemy so deep it makes me sick deep down in my guts. Things can be ended, ayuh. That ain't my role in the world, but it's something the world needs. Endings. But unmakings ain't natural. They'ah wrong.
That towah thing, it treats us like puppets. But I ain't that. I am Nun and Naunet, I am what was befoah Ra, fathah of Fathahs. I am the Abyss. An' I am done with this shit.
So I put some fresh padding in my smallclothes an' I anoint my hair with oils, an' I make up my face. An' then I go out across the lot an' knock on Management's door.
"You said," I say when I'm inside, "you'd give me moah yeahs if I fathahed a baby for you. But I'm heah to negotiate something a bit different."
"We're listening, my dear."
An' we begin to talk.
[closed]
Full moon's waning now, an' with it my bleeding's slowly, same as usual, ayuh. 'Cept this month my bleeding didn't come on, cos I was having a baby. Woke up Friday, turning my head toward a cry of a baby that didn't come, an' found my period had already started, that I was wearing the rags stuffed into my undahwear same as always. An' it made me wondah - what happened to us in the days we was away? Was theah anothah us, or did we not exist for three days? Don't know what ansah would make me feel bettah. Breasts ache like they'ah full of milk, but they ain't.
Called my son-daughtah Abzu, for the watah that rises out of the ground, surprising the world.
Don't miss her; he wasn't evah mine to have. It ain't how I am. What I was for three days was someone else. An' that me who ain't me loved Abzu, an' I remembah how it felt so well, like an ache. But it's an ache I can keep aside. I don't want to have Abzu, cos that would mean I was something altogetah different than I know, an' aftah this many thousand yeahs I don't think I can handle that kind of change. But I hate thinking Abzu was undone. All life is precious, an' I had him an' she was perfect, an' for her to have nevah been - that's a sacrilege, blasphemy so deep it makes me sick deep down in my guts. Things can be ended, ayuh. That ain't my role in the world, but it's something the world needs. Endings. But unmakings ain't natural. They'ah wrong.
That towah thing, it treats us like puppets. But I ain't that. I am Nun and Naunet, I am what was befoah Ra, fathah of Fathahs. I am the Abyss. An' I am done with this shit.
So I put some fresh padding in my smallclothes an' I anoint my hair with oils, an' I make up my face. An' then I go out across the lot an' knock on Management's door.
"You said," I say when I'm inside, "you'd give me moah yeahs if I fathahed a baby for you. But I'm heah to negotiate something a bit different."
"We're listening, my dear."
An' we begin to talk.
[closed]