Parasite

In her childhood dreams, warm golden sunshine would be streaming through the blinds. Her icy, trembling hands would be cupped in his, which would be warm and calloused from years of manual labour. She liked the roughness of his skin; she thought he was tough and unbreakable and therefore would protect her from anything. She would be unable to meet his eye; she would be too nervous. He would appear calm and composed, although his quickening breath would reveal his excitement.

Moving her hand slowly, both would inhale before looking at the white stick. There would be a moment of complete silence. A moment where the whole world stood still.

He would wrap his arms around her bare body, lifting her small frame from the floor and pulling her close enough to taste the sweat on her neck. She would sob uncontrollably, her mouth pulled up into a smile. His eyes would water too, and he would put her down, take her pale face in his cupping hands and kiss her. They would be ecstatic. They would have waited for this moment for months, maybe years. They would have picked out names and swooned over little booties. They would love each other, and they would love the child growing inside her.

It did not happen like that.

She was sat on the toilet alone with her pants around her ankles and her otherwise naked body pimpled with cold. The grey walls were damp, and the window steamed up, as it always was. There was no sunlight. There were no warm hands to grasp hers.

She stared at the floor in front of her and at the speckles of vomit that had seeped through her fingers before she had made it to the toilet earlier. It smelt. With a sickly mouth, she had wrapped herself up and walked to the pharmacy, calling in to work on the way. Back at home, she had taken off the joggers and pyjama top and stared at herself in the mirror. Turning to the side, she looked at her small stomach, barely protruding past her jutting hip bones. She peeled strands of dark hair from her face that had stuck to the sweat weeping from her forehead.

Now, sitting on the toilet she held the white stick and closed her eyes. She inhaled, imagining hearing his inhalation too. She imagined feeling his breath on her forehead as he held her close. She pictured the draft coming through the broken window frame was warmer and was the wind caressing her; Mother Nature welcoming her and gifting her.

She opened her eyes to the two lines.

It could not be, yet it was.

In her dreams she would cry, but now she did not. She stared at it blankly, her eyes void of any emotion. She put the stick on the floor and stood up, stepping out of her pants and into the shower. The water took at least a minute to heat up, but she did not care for her body felt cold already. The water cascaded over her face, ran in rivers over her small breasts and down past her belly button. It flooded her eyes and mouth and she found it difficult to breathe.

Afterwards, she wrapped her towel around her body and walked into the kitchen, leaving droplets of water on the laminate floor. In the cupboards, she pulled out whatever bottles were there: Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum, Taylor’s Port, Sainsbury’s Basic Vodka. She chose the one that would burn the most, holding the vodka in her cheeks and swirling it around her mouth before swallowing it back.

She took a seat at the kitchen table and placed her hands flat on her thighs. Staring straight ahead, she thought back and wondered how this could have happened.

The last time she had had sex she had taken the necessary precautions: he had worn a condom and she had pedantically checked it was still on throughout. It had given her something to do as she listened to his grunting and waited for it to end. He was a friend, one of the uglier ones, and now everything about him that she had ever found cute or endearing repulsed her: his grunting made her feel nauseous and the smell of his sweat was sickly as it rubbed off on her skin. His kisses had been too rough and his hands too clumsy, but she was drunk and had thought she would not care.

She cared about very little. Her job was meaningless, and life was becoming more and more tedious. She longed for a thrill but could find it in nothing; after weeks with no physical contact, she hoped she might find it in an orgasm, but instead she had found a new way to be bored.

Somehow, despite the precautions, he had invaded her. Part of him was now inside her and had been for four months.

Her body had lied to her. It had bled regularly. She had felt nauseous occasionally, but who didn’t after drinking too much or eating the wrong things.

It had been making her feel sick. It had been feeding off her and she didn’t even know. It had been growing and festering and writhing in her uterus and she was oblivious. She felt anger and malice towards the fist sized growth living uninvited in her body.

There was nothing she could do. She had nobody she could, let alone would, call. The doctors wouldn’t help, and the laws did not support her. She would give it a week and see how she felt; maybe disgust was common. Maybe she would come to accept it.