This is all in my mind, just as it is in hers. Despite the shrilling in my ear of this child I felt weighing on my arms, I'm positive this was all hallucinations. This is something I must do physically to get over this mental hurdle. The small drops from above that tap on my back in the cold night air turned to pats as the noise of flowing water and the rushing downpour accompanied the wailing of the baby. This bridge was sturdy yet rarely used, as common agreement favored the main street that didn't include going over a rushing river. I heard as the wipers on my car smacked right and left, the rest of the street was barren save for the small frogs and crickets that chirped joining the night's roar or rain.
There wasn't a lamppost for what must have been meters away, because my car's crimson taillights were the only illumination breaking the pitch. I could feel the baby still squirm in my arms. Just do it! I thought to myself. You're not hurting anyone if anything you're helping. Not only yourself but her as well. I believed it in my core. But was my core trustworthy right now? I had just seen such a miracle happen before my eyes, a miracle only spoken of in a book of beliefs.
Beliefs I did not have.
Still, it was so real, I still struggled to contain the uneasiness of this creature. Nonsense, it is just impossible. A figment of our imagination. A mirage of our subconscious. I drew a deep breath between the thick droplets that threatened to drown my face, and in one quick and forceful thrust, the baby flew out of my arms and soared over the bridge. Before the imagined body was about to be rushed away by the consuming river I closed my eyes. My ears caught the splash from below.
My eyes opened abruptly and in seconds my body trembled so furiously it threatened to shatter.
I did it.
I got rid of what weighed on my mind, like meditation that soothed the soul. But how long would it last?
I remember the first time she came into my office she was rather worried and slightly hysterical. "I can't feel my face!" she exclaimed. "The right side of my body, I cannot feel it!" I insisted she calm down and she did all she could to follow orders. "How old are you, missus..."
"Miss. Miss Poseur," said she between deep breaths. "I'm twenty-one."
I stared at her as she still managed to compose herself.
"And you say you can't feel your face?"
"Or body, this side," she gestured at her right side.
I was confused as to why this would happen to her at such a young age. Could it have been caused by a stroke?
"What do you do for a living Miss Poseur?"
"Not much, I'm afraid. Mostly house work, you see my father is very ill, bedridden. I tend to his needs. He can't do much on his own."
"Have you hit your head in the last few days? Fallen or simply just bumped it against something?"
"Not that I can recall, no."
"How about a stroke? Have you ever had one of those?"
"Not that I'm aware." She said.
"I haven't felt like myself lately, doctor...I've been experiencing things" she hesitated, "Abnormal things...happening to me...to my body. I have no clue what they mean or how to deal with them."
This drew my curiosity, "What do you mean?"
"Well..." she began, unbuttoning her soft-pink blouse then pausing, "May I?" she asked as to not be rude.
"Oh, of course."
She finished undoing her shirt, lowering it right above her breasts and showed me.
"From one day to the other this appeared, here on my chest." She gestured to some dots above her left breast that resembled birthmarks, yet they seemed blemished red and sort of scar like but not quite. As if someone repeatedly pricked her with a thick needle some time ago, numerous times. Six times to be exact.
"They don't hurt as much as they...just feel strange."
"Strange?"
"Rather..." I could tell she was struggling to express herself, "bothersome?" She offered, "But no pain."
I neared her to get a better look and she leaned in forward in response. I stuck out my hand, "May I?" asking to touch the small spots.
"Yes, of course."
Subconsciously my loose body tensed up at the touch of those marks. They felt exactly as I had described them in my mind, like tiny protruding scars. Abnormal, as I gently passed my fingers across her soft skin then abruptly disturbed by the small dots.
After a check up, everything seemed normal. She was a healthy young woman, still she insisted that the right side of her body was numb or not entirely there. She swore it was disappearing, vanishing without trace or reason. Thinking maybe she was just experiencing numbness in her extremities, I simply prescribed her some medication for that and a cream for her scars.
Still, nothing could have prepared me for her next visit. She came into the office wearing a long sleeved sweater and gloves, a scarf, and sunglasses. The broad daylight outside made my brows furrow.
"Doctor, it has happened!" She said in a wail, "It's happening, Doctor!"
"What is happening, Miss Poseur?"
"It's vanishing! The right side of my body is vanishing!"
She was still referring to her last visit, her paralysis. Still blasting her nonsense.
"Have you been taking that medication I prescribed, Miss?"
"I have, Doctor, I have!"
She was overwhelmed by now, her worry making her jumpy.
"I don't think it has been working."
I neared her and then poked her right hand.
"Did you feel that?"
"Not at all."
Now I pinched her hand, "How about that?" She shook her head. "Mind taking off your glove?"
She froze, her body didn't even seem to respond to my plee. "Miss are you alright?" I said, her eyes falling to her lap. "Would it be alright for you to take off your glove? Just to have a closer look at your hand."
"It's not there," she simply answered.
I pursed my lips in confusion, "What do you mean, Miss Poseur?"
She took a deep breath and seconds after she began to unroll her satin glove. I could see the glove coming off but the oddest thing was before my eyes when I noticed nothing was under it. In my impatience I pulled the glove clean off to reveal... nothing. Absolutely nothing!
All skin, tissue, bones, nerves, all the body up to under her elbow was nonexistent.
I found myself unable to catch my breath because without noticing I had stopped breathing all together.
I couldn't see it and apparently she was unable to see it too. Was this all a trick? A mind game played by a lonely husbandless housewife for means of amusement? "Miss, I cannot tell rather if you're at all serious or trying to make fun of me..."
"Doctor-"
"Still," I interrupted, "I insist you come clean at once and be done with this nonsense!"
"Oh! Doctor, please!" She pleaded, "You see it with your own eyes, don't you?" I could not deny it. "You believe me then? Don't you doctor?"
"I suppose I have no choice," was the answer I could muster. It wasn't a good one to give to a potentially mentally unstable patient but it was the one I offered nonetheless. What was I to even do? How does one treat a disappearing arm?
"Whe- when did this occur?" I was dumbfounded. The only thing left of her arm was her elbow and upper part of her arm, and even yet I was unsure she even had that or if it was covered as well by the clothes she wore.
"Last night, Doctor," she said, "Before I went to bed I noticed that what I was feeling was true. I'm vanishing!"
"In fact you are," was all I could utter at the moment. I kept touching her where her arm was supposed to be and I felt it, it was still there.
Yet it wasn't visible.
"Can you tell me about what happened before you felt this...invisibility?" Maybe it was something deeper than just physical vanishing, I thought.
"Well..." she started as she began replacing her sheen glove back to her vanished hand, "I was tending to my father, as I always do. He asked me to take off his jacket and he was rather hot so I quickly went to tend to his needs. But when I did he was mad at me, furious because I pulled too hard on his jacket, hurting his arm. 'Why are you so rough?' he said to me, he..." she hesitated. "He was discontent." She put on her glove but dismissed from rolling it up her transparent arm.
"And this is when it happened?" I asked.
She softly nodded. "It began as just numbness from my forearm, slowly growing, that's when I came to see you, until there was nothing to be seen today."
"Tell me, Miss Poseur-"
"Disarray," she interrupted, "Call me Disarray."
"Disarray," I continued, her name a weird taste in my mouth, "Would you mind telling me your daily routine?"
"My daily routine?" She seemed confused.
"If it's not too much trouble," I answered, I was completely stuck on what it is I should do, but I was in no way about to admit it. Stalling seemed like a reasonable choice as my brain geared a new resolution.
"Oh... no trouble, Doctor Santos," she was waiting for me to tell her my first name as well, I assumed, but I didn't budge.
"I wake up, bathe and change into my house clothes, quickly begin making breakfast before father wakes up so that when he does I just need to help him to the bathroom, then the table so he can begin eating. After I do that, I turn on the radio so that he can hear the news and as he does that I clean around the house."
"What do you do for fun?" I asked.
"Fun?" She pursed her lips.
"Yes, for fun. For leisure, pleasure, what do you do?"
She was silent for a few seconds as she thought, "I bake," she smiled.
"You like baking?" She nodded. "What do you bake?"
"Just oatmeal cookies," her smile dimmed, "Father cannot eat much sweet food."
"Well... What else do you like to do?"
"Oh, I love to read! Still, I've only read about five books. See father only likes those five and if it's not one of those read to him he will not have it."
"You can read on your own, Disarray, it doesn't have to be to your father all the time."
"Oh, no! There's no time to read when there's so much around the house to be done."
I was growing quite frustrated, "But, if you could read a book? Do you have one in mind?"
"Well, at the market, my friend Lily told me all about this one story where there's a great doctor who infuses his daughter with his garden's fruits to protect her, but I told her to shut her yap because I didn't want to be spoiled," she laughed.
I laughed as well. When she wasn't hysterical she seemed rather nice to be around.
In the flow of our conversation I had completely forgotten to think about a solution to her problem but, without even noticing, the problem was resolved. I looked at her arm and it was... there. Her arm had reappeared before our eyes and neither of us had realized it. She caught me staring at her arm, which now that it was bone and flesh I could see a big purple bruise painted across it. She gawked at her arm in awe before she said, "It's back!"
"What happened there?" I asked, seeing the bruise that by now was yellowing.
"Oh, nothing," she quickly rolled up her glove.
"Now that you're here it would be a good idea to have that checked out."
"No, no, it's fine!" She stood from the seat and hung to her coat, "I'm fine! My arm is back! You're a miracle worker, Doctor Santos!"
I stood as well. She seemed fidgety again and seemed in a hurry, "You're already here, Miss. It would be no trouble."
"I've got to get home, back to father, he's been alone too long, poor thing," she walked to the door. "Thank you, again, Doctor. Have a good day!"
"Good..." I started but before I could finish, the door closed behind her, "...day."
About two weeks passed and I had not seen Disarray since her arm miraculously reappeared, except once when I spotted her in the market. She seemed oddly happy to see me still she remained her somber and jumpy self. She asked how I was and as my manners had made me I said I was fine; yet when I asked her she seemed disheartened. Nothing specific had happened to her, she insisted, but she still felt odd, like she had described in my office. I bid my goodbyes and continued my day normally, but still her situation resonated in my head like a pickaxe echoing through a bountiful mine.
I hadn't dared speak of this situation with no one, not even my good friend Victor. Not that I was allowed to discuss such topics anyway, that didn't stop me from doing it before, but it stopped me from doing it now. Not that I wasn't supposed to, but the situation in general itself. How would I even tell Victor? Hey, have I told you the story of my patient whose arm disappeared? Sounds rather ridiculous, and then when I thought about it, I pondered whether it had even happened. Could it just have been my mind playing tricks on me? Or maybe Disarray herself was the trickster? But what was the point of pulling a trick without exposing it to have a laugh? She could be laughing, herself and her father, mocking me behind the closed doors of their home. Yet, with what motivation?
"Have a nice day, Mr. Pace," I shook my patient's hand firmly as he left the room. The old man didn't say anything but bowed slightly and respectfully as he left. As soon as the door closed it opened right back up. Mrs. Poseur stormed into the room. She was as she had been her last visit, her entire body covered head to toe in clothing. This time she also wore dark round sunglasses that covered half her face. "Hello, Miss Poseur," I offered my hand to shake but she bumped into it before she actually shook it.
"Disarray," She insisted once more.
"Right, Disarray," I corrected myself. I still found it so odd to say her name out loud, like I was breaking a rule. "How are you doing today?" I gestured for her to sit and I did the same in my chair but she stood there in front of the door. It seemed bizarre the way she carried herself this day. Like she didn't exactly know where she was.
"Worried, mostly," she answered, staring stiffly into oblivion.
"Would you mind taking a seat, miss?" I insisted.
"Oh, yes. Of course," from behind her skirt she took out a pole, a walking stick, I assumed, and took diminutive steps before tripping slightly. I quickly stood at the realization she could not see and in seconds was at her side guiding her to sit.
"Disarray! What has happened?"
She settled in her seat and set her cane aside, "My eyes have stopped working, I'm afraid."
"Stopped working?"
"I could see, then all of a sudden I couldn't."
Could this all be just another trick? Another way to play a ruse on me? I breathed deep and clenched my jaw, I tried to remain calm but my vexation was slowly getting the best of me.
"And how exactly does one see then suddenly can't." My tone, a bit harsh, I noticed as I said it.
"I- I was hoping you could tell me, Doctor," she sniffled the tiniest bit, making me immediately regret my attitude. "I can still see... shapes mostly, but it's slowly getting worse and I fear I will soon be unable to see at all."
I breathed deep, looking for calm, "Just like last time, can you tell me what happened before you began losing your vision?"
Between sniffles she told me how she was helping her father look for his glasses, they looked for hours before her father found them between his pillows. "He got very angry at me, called me a blind cow. They were right next to him and I still couldn't find them. I felt terrible that he had to go through all this stress because of my negligence," she finished.
I took some time to think of what she had said and replied, "You know, Disarray, for someone who's whole life stems from caring for your father, you do seem to fight a lot with him."
"Oh nonsense! We never fight!" She exclaimed. "We might have small arguments but that is all."
"Well, Miss, no small arguments with my father ended up in him calling me a blind cow." She remained silent, her head bowed.
"May I take a look at your eyes?"
"Definitely," she said, slowly taking off her glasses. I hesitated as my eyes fell upon hers and saw her pupil and iris, all of it, half-faded into the whites of her eyes. Her eye was completely morphing into a blank sun, bright and diminishing in ocular components.
I took a light and shone it on her eyes to test responsiveness but to no avail, there was barely any eye to examine. Still, viewing her further my eyes fell upon the marks upon her bosom. The small scar-like marks she had come here with her first visit were now larger, longer. "Disarray, those marks of yours seem to be getting worse," they seemed like they were elongating towards each other; like they were trying to connect with each other, almost forming a circle. "Any pain from them now?"
"Oh, no no, doctor. Just the same odd discomfort. Nothing else."
I sank back into my seat and stared at her lifeless eyes. There seemed to be consistency between her... vanishings, I began to notice. There always seem to be some type of argument she's getting into, maybe an anxiety inducing occurrence? Something that made her feel invisible, or want to become invisible, that maybe links with her physical form. But how was she able to do these things, if they were even happening in the first place? "Disarray, you're a youthful lively woman, healthy from what I've been able to gather," I said, "Have you considered committing your father into an elderly home?"
"That's preposterous! I could never!" She seemed offended at the thought.
"Miss, I'm just saying, you don't seem to do much more than just care for your father."
"It is my job and responsibility as his daughter!" she exclaimed, "Wouldn't you do anything for your parents, Doctor?"
"My parents don't seem to need my care anymore," I said, "They're dead."
"Oh," She seemed surprised, "I'm sorry to hear that. But I have assumed that you must not know what I'm going through." her lip was stuck outward in miff.
"But I do, miss," I answered. I tried bypassing my own personal quandaries when treating a patient, but in an attempt to have her see her situation through my eyes, through a whole new perspective, I began, "I once cared for someone, very deeply. They suddenly fell ill, and to the circumstances of him not having a family of his own either, I cared for him," I sat back in my seat and sighed deeply, "We were already... roommates, so I just had to care for him, with the impending knowledge in the back of our minds that he was dying. Of course, we were very good friends and had known each other since we were small. I wanted to keep him alive for as long as possible. I tended to him as you did your father, cooked, cleaned, even cared for his necessities. I never minded but he noticed that it was consuming my life; it was all I did, my only devotion for three years. My social life suffered, of course my job suffered but again I didn't mind. He might not have been my father, or my blood for that matter, but as you do your father, I... I loved him very much," I tried tiptoeing around my words but some things cannot be withheld. My chest compressed as I tried to continue, without much detail I decided to cut to the chase. "After time had passed he asked to speak with me, I spoke to him constantly so I assumed it was important. I sat next to him laid on the bed. He told me he was done. Ready to leave, move on." My mind drifted to that dreaded conversation of suppressed realization.
"I'm taking your life away and squandering it wasted in this bed."
"More years, months, minutes, seconds used to keep you alive would never be a waste, but a blessing."
"My health is depleting and soon I am leaving this plane anyhow. The last thing I want for you is to feel like you're indebted to me when we have always lived for and by each other. I want you to live, have fun, and be happy."
"I am living. I'm living and I am happy when I am by your side."
The conversation dwindled to nothing in the moment.
"I didn't want to admit it," I spoke to Disarray who stared at her hands on her lap. "I didn't want to lose him so I ignored the elephant in my mind for two weeks. Two weeks of knowing I was giving my irrecoverable life away but not wanting to do anything about it. Two weeks before I finally gave in when seeing him in such pain." I paused for a moment, Disarray looked at my glassy eyes with her watery obsolete orbs, "He passed a day later." Tears streamed down her rosy face but I still managed to hold back mine. "It's your responsibility to care for yourself as well."
She seemed like she was about to say something but nothing left her mouth but a quiet grumble, with a sigh I dismissed it as I remembered something. "Miss Po... erm... Disarray. I have something for you." I walked to my desk and took it out from my desk drawer.
"For- For me?" Her posture stiffened as she wiped her tears. Walking back over to her I sat beside her and wrapped her hands around what I held in mine.
"A book?" She asked.
"It contains Rappaccini's Daughter. It is the story your friend told you about."
She breathed in realizing, "Oh, heavens," She smiled.
"After you described it, I remembered I had a copy." She looked down at the book although she could probably not even get a glimpse of it. "Though, now I realize it's of no use to you."
"I- I'm-" as she stuttered. I had to narrow my eyes because I suspected they played tricks on me. Her eyes, her pupils, her irises, began to darken once more. They darkened to their normal sky blue. They began to look... normal... there.
"Disarray?" She looked at me, her eyes acknowledging me for the first time the whole visit. "Disarray, can you see?"
She sobbed, tears fell down her face to her neck as she nodded at me in affirmation. She could see again. I was dumbfounded. This is the second time she comes in with a clinically inexplicable...or supernatural problem, and just like that they magically resolve themselves with no treatment, no explanation.
She now looked back at the book in admiration, "Oh, Doctor," she offered it back, "I could never..."
"It's now yours," I interrupted her humility, "But you must promise, you'll read it."
Disarray stuttered, she tried to speak but her words didn't leave her mouth until she said, "Of course, Doctor. I will read it thoroughly," she grinned like I had never seen her grin before. I think this was the first time I actually saw her appear happy. My thoughts still racked in my head like baseballs in a batting cage that never saw solid ground once they split the air. Why was this happening to her? Why was this happening to me? It was an impossible trick, but it's been impossible since she made her arm disappear.
The end to her problems never seemed to be on the horizon for her. Currently they're a big trouble to me as well. She was drowned and drowned with dilemmas that I suspected them to be all a falsehood of the mind to feed her own insanity. She was an incandescent seiche swallowing the horizon; I yearned to turn her into a serene sluice that reflected it.
She missed her appointment. I gave her an appointment because I thought her visits to my clinic did her well. She seemed to be so confined in her head and home that she barely lived the life that's passing her by, her father was living it for her. Though, I do notice that when she's at my office she's eventually calm, eventually happy, she missed her appointment to my clinic and to me it seemed absurd she would just forget it.
After a month had passed she appeared at my office. Nothing was physically wrong with her, she assured me. Still, she wanted to speak to me because I had told her that she could if she ever felt the need. She gave hundreds of apologies for missing her appointment; though so much time had passed I had even forgotten about it.
Though her dark circles were puffy down to her chin and her hair an uncharacteristic misshapen blob on her head, her face bore a smile. A smile that had ever only left this office not arrived at it. Though her worry seemed to weigh on her like a metal bar, she wore her pearly whites like a prized accessory.
"You see I simply could not attend," she continued excusing herself.
"There's no need for explanation, Miss Poseur. The appointment was just a suggestion for your troubles," I tried reassuring her. She smirked at me then quickly went back to her normal somber self.
"Could I talk about... why I couldn't attend?" She said, and I simply nodded to her to continue. I leaned back in my chair and she seemed to do the same, relaxing her shoulders. "You see I was confined, no way out. Not legally anyway." She might have caught a glimpse of confusion on my face because she quickly sighed and continued. "I was in jail, Doctor Santos."
This time I leaned forward resting my elbows on my knees, "In jail?"
"You see, my father passed away. Poisoned he was. Once I called the police, instead of comforting condolences I received alarming accusations." She pushed her hair back with both hands and breathed out heavily, "In seconds I was thrown into a police car and dragged into the station for questioning. I spent hours in that wretched place and when they didn't believe me, I spent days. They tore through my house from cellar to rafters looking for clues that weren't there. Eventually they had to come to reason and believe the truth, and they let me go."
"I'm sorry all of this has happened to you." She smirked. "What is the truth?" I barely murmured, "If you don't mind me asking?"
"It was the snake!" She exclaimed like it was obvious.
"The snake?"
"The black snake! It somehow made its way inside our home. I was so terrified when I saw it, obviously. I screamed like it was the death of me yet little did I know it would be my father's. The snake charged at him, slithered up to his neck, it grappled around it so tight, his struggle to pull it out was naught. And my! Was there a struggle!" She grinned but quickly frowned again.
"I'm so sorry to hear that, Disarray."
"Yes, me too," she nodded, "I can't imagine why it was so hard for them to find the bite wounds, see that's the reason they didn't believe me. The snake was on him for so long it would be impossible not to leave a visible mark, don't you think?" She looked at me, her big blue eyes looking more passed me than at me. I just nodded. "After they said they found the bite marks they let me go. But still, my neighbor sneers at me like I just killed her hero. I wish her a good morning every day and she simply walks away. My friend won't even speak to me either, I wanted to discuss with her the extraordinary book you gifted me," her smiled displaying her perfect white teeth. "See, with father... gone, I've had the time to read it. But Lily, my friend, she ignores my calls." She frowned and crossed her arms, "Word travels fast but lies put light to shame."
"How have you been dealing with your father's passing?" I asked to get more of a feel on how she was at the moment.
"Oh! I was...am devastated!" she quickly corrected herself. Her pouty eyes fell to the space above me, "It's been so quiet, and honestly quite boring without father around. I just sit around all day doing nothing. I've visited his grave a few times to have something to do, but I still find myself living drably day by day. The hours drag on so slowly. I..." she paused and bowed her head, "I miss having him around, is all," her voice trembled as she said it right before she started crying— no, not crying, bawling.
I quickly rose from my seat to get the box of tissues from my desk then sat next to her on the couch and offered her one.
That was my first mistake.
She took a tissue from the box and in seconds she was on me like a sad slug. I could feel her warm breaths against my chest, making me squirm in the slightest trying to mask my discomfort. After a few seconds I gave in and embraced her delicately in a hug.
Second mistake.
She cried for a moment until she suddenly ceased and looked up at me from her place on my chest. I looked down at her, her abrupt calm startling me, and like a bat out of hell, she planted her lips on mine. I instantly unwrapped my arms around her, I'm pretty sure I was trembling when I stood as fast as my body would let me.
"That shouldn't have happened," I said rubbing my hand across my face. She stood to face me, her face at the height of my heart.
"I think it should have," she said trying to look into my eyes, but I looked away. I was still shaking and wondered if she noticed.
"It was completely unprofessional."
"You don't have to pretend, doctor! You don't have to pretend like you didn't desire to do so. Like it was the first time your lips clothed mine!"
"I...I don't. It is the first time!" My shaking was making it hard for me to speak.
"Last night's events say otherwise."
I clenched my jaw, "Last night?" I asked.
"When you quietly slipped into my room? I suspected you had a certain desire for me as I did for you but last night made that very concrete."
It all clicked now. She was delirious. She had to be for her to make such accusations that I know for a fact never happened, but I didn't know what to do in that situation. I've heard about patients creating an attraction for their doctors but I've never been through it. The times I've heard about it, I've imagined how I would act if ever, making a type of game plan, in case it were ever to occur, but when you're in said situation yourself it feels like someone stepped on your anthill. "I'm sorry, Miss Poseur, but that never happened."
"It occurred last night, I'm sure I would remember it clearly as I do right now."
"Miss Poseur-"
"Disarray. You know you call me Disarray. You did last night"
"Miss Poseur, you must understand. Those events did not happen. I am your doctor and you are my patient. I would never do anything to jeopardize that."
"I understand you're in your workspace, and maybe this is not the most appropriate place to discuss this but...I love you doctor..."
"Oh God!" I dug my face between my hands.
"And suspect you do too."
Something ignited in me and before I could put it out I yelled, "Well I don't!"
I don't know if my surprise was greater than as shell shocked as Disarray looked but I was dumbfounded and disappointed in myself for the outburst.
How many mistakes have I made already?
I quickly retracted, "I don't," I said gently. I walked towards the door, "I suggest you leave, Miss," but before I could open the door she said, "I'm pregnant."
My hand hung on the knob.
"Excuse me?" I said without even turning around.
"I...I think I'm pregnant."
"You think you're pregnant?" This time I looked at her. I just knew this woman was slowly becoming more deluded by the minute. I was too, but in a completely different way.
"I feel it, Tomás. I feel it inside me," she rested her hand on her belly. I couldn't help but chuckle and instantly regret it.
"You don't believe me," she murmured, narrowing her eyes at me. However, knowing all the blunders I've committed at this point I held my tongue.
"Come," she offered me her hand, "Come feel it." But when I kept my feet planted she walked over to me. I let out a sigh before she grabbed my hand and laid it on her belly.
"Disarray, this is..." I went mute at the sudden feeling.
The sudden feeling of pressure pushing on my palm. It was... kicking... her flat belly was kicking. "That's...that's impossible..." this couldn't be real. This woman had to be committing to pulling tricks on me like she obviously had in the past. That flame was igniting in me again, but it turned to ice when not only was the baby kicking but her belly began to swell.
Her womb began to grow and grow like a balloon on a helium tank. I retracted my hand so aggressively I could have sprained it, and fell back on my butt so hard it reverberated across the whole office. From the floor I could still see her belly grow. Upon her face a smile as wide as her cheeks could stretch. I shuffled back against the wall with my hands. I knew that disappearing eyes were impossible, but this takes the cake. My heart was threatening to burst out of my chest. I had stopped breathing and didn't even notice when.
Was this really a trick? An optical illusion? Was it...sorcery?
How was it that everything she said was occurring, despite the most outrageous claims, came to fruition before my eyes. Was I losing my mind just as she was?
My brain stopped in its tracks. That had to be it right? I was just imagining it as she was. This was nothing but a case of emotional contagion. I must admit my emotional state has not been stable in the least, so this is the logical explanation. She was feeding my brain what she wanted it to see, she was charming it like a snake without even noticing. So now, I just had to go along with it until my brain goes back to normal and she's out of my hair.
I know she's wrong. I know I'm wrong. I can fix this.
Almost instantly my heart was calm. Dissaray's belly had stopped growing, probably because it couldn't anymore, and her smile never faltered. "You're gonna be such a great father, Tomás."
I slowly stood from the floor and neared her cautiously. She rubbed her prepartum belly with both hands, it had grown so that it was visible under her shirt, stretch marks creeping around it. She giggled, but looked like she was met with pain right after. Her face contorted in a cringe when she grabbed her big tummy. She began to groan, gasp for air. I stepped back but when she did the same I lunged forward to hold her too late, before she crashed into my glass coffee table and smashed it beneath her in screams of agony.
"It's coming!" she groaned, "The baby is coming!"
I grabbed a cushion from the couch and placed it under her head. Crouching down next to her I pushed away the wooden pieces of the table, and held her hand. I could see the blood beginning to pool under her and I didn't know if I should tend to the cut wounds or her imminent delivery first.
"Short breaths, Disarray. Short steady breaths." She did as I said as tears streamed down her face.
She was going to bleed out, from one thing or the other she was about to bleed out. Yet the alarm of the situation was clouding my judgment.
This wasn't real.
Her baby wasn't real.
But my coffee table was.
I hastily snapped out of my shock, grabbed her around the back and under her knees and lifted her out of the debris, placing her on the small stretcher next to my desk. For a woman who wasn't pregnant she was sure heavy like one.
I placed her on her side to take a look at her backside. The blood stain in the middle of her back expanded larger and larger onto her baby blue blouse. She was still groaning in pain, her breathing uncontrolled. Carefully lifting the blouse up I noticed the huge gash across her back, along with smaller unimportant lacerations all over. It was as long as my finger and as wide as a pencil. I quickly put pressure on it to try and control the bleeding. "Our baby, doctor! Our baby!" The cut was deep so she needed stitches, as soon as possible. Least she bleed to death.
"You are bleeding too aggressively. You need stitches." I ran to my supply cabinet for the stitching materials and anesthesia. "I'm out of local anesthesia, I'm going to have to put you under."
"Under?" She yelled, "How am I birthing our baby if I'm asleep?"
I walked back to the stretcher, "Disarray there is no baby!" I walked around where she laid to face her. "This is all just in your head! But you want to know what is real? That huge gash in your back that if I don't stitch up immediately, will cause you to bleed to death." Her chest rose and fell aggressively as she sobbed, she closed her eyes shut scrunching her whole face.
"Do it without the sedative."
"Disarray, it is a big wound, I'll be putting needles in your back..."
"DO IT WITHOUT THE SEDATIVE!" she yelled so fiercely I could have sworn the whole room shook.
I heaved a breath, and as I walked around her again, I couldn't help but stare at her gaping orifice, I saw the head beginning to protrude from her body, the miracle happening before my eyes. My heart dropped. Her scream pierced the air like an arrow yearning its target. My instinct was to help her deliver but I didn't do that. I couldn't do that. There was no delivery.
I got to work.
Every time the needle pierced her skin there was a hiss from her, followed by a yell from her delirious pregnancy. The gash was not only long across but deep, the inside stitching proving harder as a result of her position on the stretcher. I was almost done when she let out a long deafening scream and I could feel her body struggling to push. Once her scream died down, I inexplicably believed I heard the shrieking of an infant. Immediately I dropped my needle. It dangled from the thread in her skin as I stood to look between her legs once more.
There it was, the head of the baby was crowning out of her like a tumor.
No. There was no head. No baby. There couldn't be.
The fact that the baby was crying while still inside the mother was further proof of that. There was no way it could wail with such intent while its neck and body were still entrapped between the mother's pudendum.
I sat back down and continued the stitching. "Doctor, please help me!" I ignored her. I needed my complete focus on finishing this stitching so I could patch it up. I had already controlled the bleeding, but still, everything could go south any second. "Please! Our baby!" she sniffled through her gasping and tears. It was fortunate I could focus so forcibly too, she was trembling and shaking and fidgeting all over the bed, still I hadn't missed a single stitch.
The infant's cries were louder than her yelling. "UGHHHHH!" she groaned once more, pushing her sweet nothing. While I did try concentrating on the stitching of Disarray's back, the thought of my insanity was being stitched into my own mind. The possibility of a baby was naught, much less a crying baby while it was still being born. Yet its shrieking nearly hurt my eardrums by how imperative its distress was. Like the baby itself was conscious of its nihility and cried out in hopes of solidifying its existence. How was she even able to get the baby's head out with no help and in this sideways position that could only make it harder?
I finally finished her stitches and began patching the cut up, gauze and tape flying between my hands.
I put down my materials on the metal table and walked around the stretcher, around the top half this time to avoid feeding my mind fuel to make me see the baby. "You're all stitched up. Most of the bleeding has stopped."
"Please help me," she murmured as she sobbed. "I can't do this."
I grabbed her by the shoulder, "Disarray you need to calm down."
"THERE IS A BABY STICKING OUT OF MY BODY!" she yelled furiously, her eyes could have sparked but my eyes could've deceived me once more.
"Disarray, the baby is not real!" Her only reaction was to cry and groan, she looked defeated but her defeat was not accompanied by the silence of the baby. If anything that made it wail louder. I stood there staring at her. Once again my brain was racking my head, deciding whether I should ignore her neurosis or give into her fantasies as to calm her down. She was out of breath but still she was just laying there and struggling with her imagination. Her gentle sobs cascaded in my ears while the baby's shrieks stabbed them intrusively.
I gave in.
I moved my chair to the edge of the bed and saw the crying baby almost up to its shoulders. I took a deep breath, changed my gloves and I said to her, "Do you think you could lay on your back for me?" I yelled over the baby. She looked at me and nodded like it hurt her. Between hisses and cringes she struggled to turn on her back but finally did. "You already have the head down, that's the hardest part, all you need to do is push, alright? Can you do that?" She nodded again. "Alright now push!" once the word left my mouth she groaned like the agony she had felt before was nothing compared to now. Her pushing was working though, as the baby slid out inch by inch, breath by breath.
She screamed out her last breath and something shone against the ceiling. A light emanated from her as the babe was finally out and squirming in my arms, covered in blood. Without even having cut the umbilical cord I basically ran with the infant in my arms to face the mother and see what was causing such radiance.
It came from her.
From within her.
From her chest. The marks that had been getting odder and greater through the passing days were now glowing brighter than a firefly, the shape almost unrecognizable.
It was...a star? It seemed like a star but the glowing was becoming so blinding now I couldn't make it out. I had to cover my eyes with my hand before it went out in a snap. This was becoming too much for me to handle. My mind was about to burst all over me like a dismal shower of viscera.
She was unconscious now, the marks on her chest gone. The birth seemed to have taken everything out of her. Or maybe the glowing beam that had shot out of her.
No, it was obviously the feckless struggle. She had pushed and cried and heaved so much she succumbed to exhaustion right then. She really believed all this nonsense was reality, that she could disappear and miraculously conceive and all these other things she had shown me.
Yet I seemed to believe it too. I stared at the baby that cried in my hands. I could feel it wriggle in my arms restlessly. She was there. The baby was there, with me. I began to notice how she resembled me. Her nose. Her mouth. All in all, it looked like she was mine...All in all, a figment. The possibility was naught. It was all in my head as it was in hers. These were just mental hurdles that must be crossed. And I was about to cross them.
In minutes I detached the babe from its mother, sedated Disarray with a needle in her unconscious arm, and headed out of the office with my bag on my shoulder and a baby in my arm.
Then, I did what had to be done.
Once the water under the bridge washed her small body away I could instantly feel something take over my body.
Terror. Relief. Calm.
I got rid of what weighed on my mind, like meditation that soothed the soul. But how long would it last?
I came back to my office, took off my damp coat, and felt my heart skip when I found Disarray nowhere to be seen. My legs threatened to give out under me. She was an unhinged mental patient and I had no idea where she was. She could've probably gone home but was it even a good idea to go after her? I thought of calling the police but what would I even say? My patient just had an imaginary baby in my office, but while I went to dispose of it she ran away. I don't sound very stable myself.
One thing I knew for sure was that I needed to go home. I was covered in blood and vernix caseosa, not to mention the sweat that had soaked through my shirt, which created a mix of gnarly smells.
After I cleaned up my office, disposed of any litter that my craft had left behind and cleaned up the scraps and shards of the table in the middle of my office. Taking off my putrid shirt, I wrapped myself up in my coat, ready to get hit by the frigid rainy cold of the outside and headed back out to my home.
When I arrived I dropped my keys onto the small table next to my front door. I sighed deeply at the long night that had happened just now, passing my hands through my hair. My exhaustion had just gotten to me and it hit me hard. I began taking my coat off when a sound sucked all the blood from my body. It sounded like, "a baby?" I whispered. The sound echoed from upstairs, and when I looked up there was a light on that seemed to come out of my bedroom.
The wailing and cooing continued.
My feet were frozen to the floor but I somehow managed to take a step. Then another...before the sounds of sirens made me jump in place. I looked behind me to see blue and red lights flashing through my curtained windows. The sirens went silent suddenly, then I heard a car door slam shut, in seconds an officer was knocking at my door. "Doctor Santos! Police! Open up!"