Name Field: Blank.
Current Status: Blank.
Mood: Blank.
Classification: Blank.
Date: Blank.
I lay on my back with my naked skin touching the crisp paper wrapper. It crinkles and sticks as I shift side-to-side for a more comfortable position. Looking up, I notice the abstract mobile floating aimlessly above my head. Twisting wire is attached to assorted geometric shapes in primary colors of red, blue, and yellow. My eyes focus on the powdery dust that speckles their tops like heather-gray woolen caps.
The white lab coats walk through the heavy wood door and as if by involuntary reflex, my legs automatically spring forth. I slide my ass to the front of the table, rest my navy blue stripe stocking feet into the stirrups, and take a deep breath. Their voices are calm. Their smooth latex hands are cold. A rough cotton sheet covers my knees and thighs. I refuse to look straight ahead. My mind goes completely blank.
My eyes are closed while my other senses amplify. A chilly metal cone-shape gadget is inserted carefully in my open vagina. The mechanism pokes and stretches wide like the skeletal veins of a shoddy umbrella. I clench my fists feeling every slight peck and scrape of the razor tool. Seconds seem like hours. A salty tear slides down my weary face and delicately touches my dry cracked lips.
A maternal voice speaks softly. I nod. It gradually comes out of me, rests on a metal tray, and is traded for another foreign medical object. I can feel the muscles in my abdomen clench as the lubricated condom-covered dildo-like device is inserted deep inside. I squirm. The device swirls within, moving back and forth scanning my innards with high frequency sound so as to detect abnormal growths, rips, blockages, and worse: cancer. I can't see the small screen that projects an image of my womb, but I hear a slight mumbling under faint breath in a language I can't seem to comprehend. I agonize.
My heart beats wildly within the walls of my chest cavity as if it were about to feverishly burst. I wish my husband was holding my hand. I sink well-absorbed into the table's padding as if it were a rectangular pool of water. I am not there in the examination room. My mortal body is.
The tapping of leather soles on expensive footwear resounds throughout the space as if the procedure was occurring in an underground cave. It startles me to awareness. I'm empty and wet. Someone hands me a scratchy square napkin. I use it to blot my face.
It takes all of my strength to lift myself up. The ghostly figures move away and my gaze settles on my husband seated patiently in the corner. I yearn to sit on his lap and curl up into a little fetal ball. My internal clock resumes its instinctive ticking. I reach for the rumpled denim skirt hiding my blood-stained underwear and dress myself in anticipation of my next reproductive assignment. It hits me. Profoundly, we are already dutiful parents in a process of rebirth in our relationship where the initial creator key is due acceptance. What is done now is only the beginning.
"Sarah? This way, please."
Copyright ©2008 Sarah B. Paquette
