When The Darkness Takes Us [Blair's Story]

Chapter Five - All We Are is Meat

I never get tired of seeing Little Love on the ultrasound machine. She's looking more baby-shaped these days, but even when she was just a little blob on the screen I loved staring at her. This life, growing inside me, the culmination of...

I choke back a sob.

"Here you are, sweetie," the tech says, and hands me a box of tissues. "Hormones, eh?"

"My husband left me," I blurt out, gripping the box in my hands. "He left us because the world is going to end and I can't stop thinking about how my little girl is a part of him but he won't be here to see her!"

The tech shifts, still clicking around to take all the measurements.

"I can't believe he did this to me, to us."

She pushes down on the sensor, squeezing my bladder, and I nearly let it all go right there. Not letting a pregnant woman piss for four hours is cruel and unusual torture. I clamp my legs together, breathing through the sensation. If I let go, then she won't be able to get her measurements. If she can't get her measurements, I won't know how Little Love is progressing. I want her to be healthy. I want her to be healthy and happy and loved.

I dab at my eyes with a tissue, though no tears are coming. "I've cried so much over him, over everything. It's amazing my body can even produce tears anymore." I know I'm babbling. I know this woman is probably uncomfortable listening to me bear my soul, but I can't stop the verbal diarrhea. I never can. "How could he abandon his child, especially when the world is going to end? I don't even have a job anymore. I tried to apply for early maternity leave but the government doesn't even know what to do about benefits and stuff like that, with the economy. Who knows if I'll even get it? Who knows if I'll have a place to live when my baby is born?" Oh, there are some tears. I try to blink them back, then give up and use the tissue. "I hate all of this."

The tech clamps her jaw shut, muscle working in the side of her face. She looks like she wants to say something, like she's holding something back.

That usually means it's nothing good.

"Is the baby okay?" I ask.

"She's fine," the tech replies, tone clipped. "Everything looks good. I'll pass the information on to your doctor, and if you have any specific questions you can address them." She pulls off her gloves and all but throws a towel over my exposed sticky belly. "Take your time cleaning up, and the bathroom is across the hall."

She disappears from the room before I can get another word in, and I gape at the door.

Then my bladder protests again. I consider just letting it rip all over the table for the tech to clean up after being so rude to me, but instead wipe myself clean and waddle off to the bathroom.

Post-ultrasound pissing is heaven. I let myself feel the release, relaxation, the joy.

Those moments are hard to come by.

A month passes. A month of trying and failing to get monetary help. Trying to contact my old coworkers, see where they went and what they're doing. The call centre had been an easy job for me. I like talking to people.

I got hung up on a lot, and that stung, but for those that stuck around, I had a pretty good rate of getting them to donate money to whatever cause we were pushing that day. As long as they didn't ask what percentage of their donation actually went to the charities. Part of the script was giving them the web site with the stats and then sending them on their way. The percentage was dismal.

I guess in this day and age there's no need for charities. I could use some charity right about now.

There's a guy that's moved in down the hall from me... well, I say moved in, but he's just taken over an empty apartment. I guess whoever lived there—I think it was an older woman? I don't remember—took off when the news broke like so many did.