Author : Joyce Weber
I want to love them. Truly I do. But they keep shoving and pushing, wrangling around inside me till I want to rip my belly open and dump them out.
There is no peace with them crowding my body till they almost feel like they will ooze out the very pores of my skin.
“They are the future” I remind myself and wonder if any good can come of a future born in such tremulousness. Are they never still? Never quiet?
I long for how it once was. When my body was my own. When my brain was free of worrying about them. Do they have everything they need to grow strong? Am I doing all that I must do to ensure their optimal survival?
I shouldn’t doubt myself. I nourish them; I keep myself pure that they are untainted. All for them. Everything for them. My precious ones, my darlings, my bane, my torture.
I want them gone. I know it is an evil thing to contemplate. To just cast them away and forsake them. They will die without me. But I am so tired. I have been carrying them so very long. They can not survive with out me, not yet. I must be strong.
I must fulfill my duty to these, oh so treasured, lives, these demons that torment me with their movements and noise. Ever growing. Ever expanding. I feel like I will surely burst if I can’t get them out of me soon.
Why did there have to be so many of them? They keep growing. It is beyond what one such as I should have to bear. Surely my body was not designed for such a load. What if I perish from the weight of them? Wouldn’t it be better to cast some out so that the others could live?
I am not capable of such a decision. I will bare them, and deliver them into the life that awaits them or we shall all cease to exist together.
Darkness. Endless starless nights with no breath to make a sound. How wonderful that sounds. How like perfection. I will simply let us all slip into that forever sleep.
Wait! Something is changing, heavy, I feel so heavy. Like I am being crushed to earth with the massive weight of them. I am torn open and they pour out of me in a massive flood, tumbling over themselves to abandon me. Me, who tended their every need. Me, who they forsake with out a backwards glance.
Go! Go all of you! Run out to this new world. This new life. I will carry you across space no more. I am rid of you. Rid of your pushing and shoving and noise. I am free of you.
I feel so liberated, so light. I could fly without engines. I feel so. . . so empty.
Come back. Let me hold you again. I need you. I have no purpose without you. I am so lonely.
___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow