Mum

You feel the colour rising from your lips to your cheeks and the sweat from your nape sliding down your back, your back arched against your stomach which is big and ready to drop like a ripe fruit. In front of you sits a woman with lips pursed.

I'm sorry, she says. We don't have a maternity ward here. A chill climbs the wobbling ladder of your spine and the muscles in your lower back clench like a fist.

Your car car broke down on the highway and no one would stop and your phone didn't work. You told yourself you weren't going to deliver on the highway, not two strides from road-killed possum. Eventually a driver stopped and you imagine he appeared through the force of your will.

Now you stand in reception, bandy-legged as Clint Eastwood, where it's so empty the stringent tones of some embittered nurse echo like the turns of a spider-web. You imagine the nurse never had children. You imagine she eyes your full belly with envy.

All the muscles of your torso squirm and throb. Your knees collapse and you're crouching on the floor. The nurse is yelling, but you don't hear her words, you just imagine her mopping all the blood and shit you're going to leave on the floor.

You feel yourself becoming grainy, like an elastic band stretched too far. Your skin folds and tautens. And suddenly everything is rushing out, and you're scared that as something cleaves from your spine it's going to take your guts with it.

A wet cry squeals from the baby. It's mottled and covered with your innards but you scoop it up anyway and ignore the gunk sliming your hands. Where you quickly became so empty you're suddenly filling up. It's warm and it swells like a balloon and you feel it's going to split your skin and spurt out. She cries again and the warmth is spurting out and you look down: it's milk.