Fragile outcomes

She laid there like butchered meat - freshly ripped open and marinating in her own vital fluids. She watched as they rolled her newborn baby away in a sterile box. She listened to the slow crackle of its dirty wheels pushing down against the floor. Her mind kept track of the growing distance, each crackle sounding fainter than the one before. There’s hope, they said. Her heart dropped, like a heavy pendant into the deep blue sea, releasing a single bubble to the surface, and it turned out to be a scream. A scream so silent, that only a mother with a dying baby would know.

***

She sat quietly in her nursing chair, caressing his tiny body, careful not to irritate him. She gently ran her hand over the curve of his abdomen and then rested it on top, savouring the rise and fall of each breath. This tiny movement, so benign to the world, almost slipped away from her six months ago. She squeezed him a little tighter, and held him close until she drifted away in sleep.