The Baby
i dreamed my cousin came up to me as i walked down the street from my childhood home. she’d jumped out of her car at the corner when she saw me. she ran up to me and grabbed me by the arm and said if i was still interested in adopting a child that she could help me. i understood her to mean she was pregnant again and didn’t want this baby either. then she handed me a little bundle, which we took inside.
it was a very tiny, quite premature baby. she hadn’t put a diaper on it so we carried it over to the convenience store nearby to get some. all the choices were gender based so i had to wait for her to catch up with me since i hadn’t seen the baby. she laid him on a paper towel display and i unwrapped the blanket around him. oh was that an awful sight. it had big patches of missing skin is all i can figure because i could see some of its organs and tiny bones and muscles. its brain was hanging out the bottom of its skull and looked yellow in a way that wasn’t right. my cousin kept trying to take hold of its flailing little legs but i grabbed her wrist as hard as i could and told her not to touch him. he was so tiny that it looked like it could break a bone to touch him. i told her to go call an ambulance for him.
then i saw his insides were coming out, long spools of intestine, red and starkly white and slimy. the only way i could think to keep them moist and safe until help came was to put them in my mouth. so suddenly i had a mouth full of intestines and they wiggled like worms and i tried to focus really hard so i didn’t get sick.
after help came for the baby, i went to find its parents. they were now supposed to be a kid from work and her boyfriend, living next door to my house. i went to their place and made a terrific scene. i was enraged, throwing things, knowing over anything i could get a hold of, yelling at them about not taking care of the baby, not feeding him, how stupid and selfish could they be. the “tough” boyfriend gang member came home and i scremed at him until he was prone on the floor explaining that it was all the girl’s fault, that he’d been out looking for a job.
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