The Citrus Syndrome

22 ; baby

Baby

Catherine

If anything, I'm just kind of mad.

I mean, seriously. Who dies like this? I'll tell you who: no one. No one fucking freezes to death in a seventy-two degree room while everyone around them struts by in their t shirts, sweating because it's fucking hot.

It isn't even the freezing to death that I mind. That's fine; the freezing in itself doesn't actually hurt. What I do mind is all the little aches and pains that have infiltrated my mind, forcing themselves into the permanent narrative of my death.

It just seems unfair. Other people are downstairs choking on their own vomit or having heart attacks while I'm up here wasting away as slowly as possible.

No one seems to understand that. Not Wilson, not Ghania, not the employees and volunteers that I lure to my corner of the room and beg mercy from. No one will kill me. It's like they're all in on some sick joke against me.

I can only hope that Bo will take pity on me. After all, he's dying too.

Taya is here with me, now. Wilson is still trying fruitlessly to create a contained fire on the library carpet. I tried to tell him that even if he could manage to make a fire it wouldn't help me, but he didn't listen. That seems to be everyone's shared state of being at the moment: not listening.

Anyway, I can't fall asleep because I'm afraid Taya will catch the virus from my nightmares. I can't stand the idea of her getting sick. Me? I deserve this. I created it. Her? She deserves nothing less than the best from life. At the very least, she deserves to die of something quiet, something peaceful. Not this.

She holds the back of her hand to my forehead, sighing uselessly when my skin remains freezing cold. What are you sighing about? I almost snap. Did you expect something to fucking change?

I don't talk because I know that if I do, I will say something mean and Taya will cry. And if there's one thing I can't stand to see right now, it's Taya crying.

I wonder if Ghania has found Bo yet. I imagine she has, but getting a sick person from the basement to the library is no small feat if you aren't willing to carry them. They are probably still inching their way down the hall, Bo caught between Ghania and the wall.

I for one cannot even imagine walking right now. Everything hurts: my arms, my legs, my feet, my abdomen, my head, my neck, my chest. It feels like having a perpetual heart attack while suffering from an awful migraine after falling off a tall building and receiving no medical attention.

But then the pain is gone and replaced by something else: pure joy.

I feel like I could burst from it. It expands in my chest like an overinflated balloon, filling me up with hope and ecstasy. I don't know why I'm so happy until I open my eyes.

I am in a small, blue room with chairs lined up at the wall. I am in a bed, a hospital bed, with my legs covered in thin blue sheets. I can see the patterned fabric of a hospital gown on my shoulders.

There is something else in the bed too, though. Something wonderful.

He (it's a boy, I can tell) is a compilation of every dream I have ever had, every wish I have ever made. He is a book in which my every desire is written, where I keep my hopes and fears and aspirations.

His face is small and pudgy, the same white as a new pearl. Plump cheeks surround a pair of satiny, smiling lips, parted slightly so I can see the salmon pink of his tongue. His nose is tiny and round, his eyes almond-shaped and crystal blue like mine. The fuzz on top of his head is the same chestnut color that my hair is.

Seeing him makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time, so I do. His perfect face blurs in front of me as my eyes fill. When my tears start to fall, the baby whimpers and breaks into sobs as well.

"No, no, no," I whisper. "Don't cry, Beautiful." I know what to do without thinking about it. I pull down the collar of my hospital gown, lifting the baby's face to feed him.

But I don't notice what's wrong until it's too late.

My breast is a poisonous green color, webbed with a system of dark purple veins that lead to the place where my baby is drinking from like branches of a river feeding into the sea.

I try to pull the baby away from me, but he holds fast. He drinks hungrily, gulping down the toxins my body has produced for him instead of milk. I am still crying, but no longer from joy. I feel a crushing sense of hopelessness in my chest as the baby sucks his poisonous bottle dry.

The baby coughs, choking on the venom, yet he doesn't stop drinking. Again I try to yank his mouth away, but he only seals his lips tighter like a hand holding onto a cliff for dear life. Now he is drinking and choking and spitting, foam bubbling up at his mouth. I am panicked; what do I do? My baby, my wonderful, beautiful, flawless baby is dying, is killing itself right before my eyes. Shouldn't a mother be able to stop this from happening?

That is when I realize: I am not a mother and I can never be one.

The tiny body seizes in my arms, writhing like a fish on land. My sobs turn from cries of sorrow and confusion to screams of agony. I need it to end. I can't take anymore.

I grab the sheets covering my legs, pulling them over the baby so I can only see the outline of his suffering. Gathering my resolve, I bunch up the blanket and press it into the child's nose.

I hear sputtering, I hear shrieks. Then whimpers.

Then nothing.