2021 theme: RUPTURE

FETAL POSITION Stephanie Nelson Monitor lights brightened the room but it was dark enough for Cora.

Dark or not wasn’t keeping her from sleep, it was the babies crying. She rolled to her side in the hospital bed and touched the soft remains of pregnancy on her stomach. She moved her hand down until she reached the C-section wound dressing, which rustled a bit under her ingers and then the pain struck.

It had only been quiet for ive minutes and her body melted a little into white bedding, looking for sleep anyway.

She had sent Jef home for the night even though he’d slept in the awkward chair-turned-rollaway-bed for the past two nights and swore he was used to it. Hopefully this was the last night she’d be in the hospital and he might as well get a good night’s sleep she told him. One of them should. What if you need something? He said. I have nurses, she said. As if he’d be any help, he was such a hard sleeper. Jef patted her head like she was the family cat, grabbed his work jacket and walked out at 5 p.m.

Sure, Cora had pain medication but the most recent dose was wearing of.

She looked at the hands on the clock hanging over a dusty rose-papered wall by the door and then at the whiteboard where the nurse wrote her pill schedule.

Sleep was the only way to get through the next two hours.

The current silence pushed the hope that she’d succeed and enter sleep’s palace after all. It curled up around her and held her until the airy invitation arrived at the same time a pinched noise began from a few rooms down. The single cry was methodical at irst and she was wide awake again.

Cora assumed she’d be dealing with for a crying newborn for months to come. The crying wasn’t pleasant, but it was part of the package of having a baby. She just didn’t think it would be part of this package. Still laying on her side, Cora covered her ears with her hands and cried throaty tears to drown out the noise. She didn’t even ease into it. First stop? Absolute sobbing.

One newborn cry triggered a second and a third until they were speaking a bawling baby language through hospital walls to each other. Cora heard observations that devolved into existential questions. It’s cold. I’m hungry.

Change my diaper. Help me sleep. Don’t make me sleep. Who am I? Why am I here?

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