Cricket: Ember's Story

Prologue: Cry

"When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like a while they bore her up... But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death."
-William Shakespeare

I squeeze my eyes shut in the tiny, hot bathroom, my breaths coming in ragged gasps. Though the door is locked, I still feel at any second now he'll barge in and find me here on the bathroom floor in a puddle of my own water and blood as the contractions squeeze closer and closer together. Sobbing, I clutch at my stomach, as if trying to keep the baby inside.

"Ember! Get your ass out here!"

The harsh voice is muffled by an even louder fist pounding on the metal door.

"I'll be out in a second!" I gasp back, trying to keep my voice calm and even.

I am sure I am dying. There is nothing about this pain that is reasonable. It is horrific. Insides squeezing, twisting, wringing. I've never had a kid so I don't know what's normal or what I should feel. Women in the movies are always screaming and sweating trying to push out a baby, but however it looks on screen, trust me it's a thousand times worse.

When we woke up this morning jonesin' up to hard eight, I never expected this to happen. I thought I was dopesick. I should have another month left if I calculated right, which I obviously didn't.

"What the fuck are you doing in there? We gotta go!"

"Just give me a second!"

"You've been in there twenty minutes already! Don't make me wait! I'll leave your ass here!"

My body is telling me I have to push whether I want to or not. Hot tears roll down my face as I wrap my arm around an exposed sink pipe that feels solid enough. I grab the sleeve of my gray jacket and I stuff it in my mouth to bite on, hoping it'll absorb whatever screaming might involuntarily come out. And then I push as hard as I can.

I feel myself ripping on the inside, and the pain spikes to red hot. A scream that starts in my belly thunders out my mouth but gets tangled in the cloth of the hoodie sleeve so it's muffled. Thank God I was smart enough to think of that. I look down, hoping to see the cause of my suffering sticking even partially out of my body, but nothing is there. That push did nothing! It almost killed me and it did nothing!

I have to breathe or I'll pass out, and I rip the sleeve out of my mouth to gulp air. I barely have time to recover before my body forces me to push again. This time it isn't much worse. The pain is already at level 1000 and I'm adjusting to it, now more determined to finish this than I am scared.

"Come on!" I whisper desperately to my belly, "Please get out! Get the fuck out of me!"

A few pushes later, my sobs suddenly mix with the sharp cries of the infant between my legs... red, bloody, tiny hands flailing. A boy. I gasp, speechless as I look down at the thing kicking in the water and blood on the concrete floor. For a moment, all I can do is stare at him. Then I come to my senses.

I get to my knees and snatch at the paper towels dangling halfway down the mildewed wall. I grab a bunch of them, and the rest all spill out of the rusty container onto the floor. Terrified that Jesse might hear the cries, I put a few paper towels over the baby's face to muffle the sound as I try to clean up the floor around him. There's so much blood the paper is drenched in seconds and the puddles make marks like windshield wipers on the floor as I try in vain to mop everything up. All I'm really doing is just moving it around.

Then, hands shaking, I cut the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors from my purse. Jesse doesn't know about this baby, can't know. For months now I've worn my baggiest clothing, carefully concealing my growing belly. I've made it this far. Just a little farther now... A few more minutes and Jesse's going to leave without me.

"Shut up! Please!" I whimper to the screaming infant. The only other sound is a lone cricket trapped somewhere in the bathroom with us.

I have nothing to wrap the baby in except the old gray jacket, and I put it around him, pick him up along with all the paper towels, and crawl on my knees across the bathroom floor to where the small trashcan sits overflowing beside the toilet. I dump the contents out onto the floor and gently put the whole bundle inside. The baby's cries, muffled beneath the jacket and paper towels, are still piercing. I sob too, resting my head on the edge of the toilet as exhaustion and despair envelop me.

"I'm sorry," I whisper to the bloody bundle. "Forgive me. It has to be this way. You don't want this life anyway. It's better for you to go back where you came from. This place is hell, trust me. Go back to heaven. I'm sure God will let you be born again to another mother who's better than me."

I jump when I hear Jesse pounding on the door again.

"I'M DONE WAITING FOR YOU! GET THE FUCK OUT HERE RIGHT NOW, YOU STUPID BITCH!"

My hand clamps over the baby's mouth to muffle the cries.

"Please," I say weakly. The bathroom looks dark all of the sudden. "Please, Jesse..."

"You have TEN seconds! Then I'm leavin' your ass! Ten, nine, eight-"

"Please..."

I manage to get to my feet and stumble to the bathroom door while the baby still cries in the trashcan. Stars blind my vision. That's when it hits me: I can't leave him. I can't leave him in this bathroom to die alone in a trashcan.

Without stopping to think, I grab it. That trashcan can't possibly weigh more than ten pounds, but it takes everything in me to hold it in one arm while my other hand grabs the door handle. Jesse isn't counting anymore, and when I push the door open to talk him into waiting longer, he's gone. He left me.

Dazed and blinded by stars, I stumble back into the bathroom, take the warm bundle out of the trashcan and hold it to my chest. The baby cries and cries, and so do I. I only have enough strength to sit on the floor and push us back into a corner with my feet. There, I lean into the cool space where the brick walls meet.

"It's just you and me," I whisper softly. "Just you and me, baby."

For a moment, the baby's cries quiet as I hold him, and then he looks up at me with my own eyes. I smile, unexpected tears of joy mixing with all the other tears I've cried tonight. The cricket that was chirping earlier has made its way out from underneath the sink and is now shuffling across the floor.

"Cricket," I say gently before I lose consciousness. "That's your name. My Cricket."

Something is happening. I become aware of it just in time to think, 'Oh shit there's another one in there!' right before this gooey red mass slides out of me onto the floor. I stare at it in absolute horror.

Holy fuck!

I accidentally pushed out all my guts!

I'M GONNA DIE HERE!

That's my last panicked thought. With it, my body goes cold with shock and blood loss, and the whole world is black.