Imogene like felt the kicking and like felt all that gross blood like spilling out of her onto the floor. She even kind of heard something. Not out loud but in her mind. Something like a desperate plea. But she couldn’t stop laughing.
Real Life was funny! That’s what RL was! Funny!
“A summer’s day…”
It like hadn’t been said aloud. It was like part of that desperate plea. It was…funny!
There, there!”
It had been said aloud, in that beautiful voice the old woman holding her had. Amelia was her name. Then Amelia pressed Imogene’s head into the crook of her neck, forcing Imogene to close her eyes. At first she smelled bandaging and Bacitracin but then something funny happened…not really happened, just in her mind like that desperate plea…and there was the scent of a different woman sparking odd…were they memories of a snuggly long ago when someone else sang to her?
She was being rocked, still imagining things…like that Amelia, the source of the desperate plea, and that different woman were all three singing to her. But a harsh thought she couldn’t quite grasp broke the spell, something about how someone might never again hold her tight.
She felt something like shadows shift about in her mind. Something like optical illusions first appeared one way, then another.
Imogene grabbed at one of the shadows in her mind, something from long ago. Part of it seemed to slip through her fingers such that she might never again grasp it, but she did come away from it feeling like a child and did remember that she always liked shiny things.
“Where’s something more I can use to keep her warm? Like a blanket.”
Amelia speaking. Everyone else was looking around, away from Imogene, who’d flickered back to the present at the sound of Amelia’s voice but now slipped back to being the child who liked shiny things. An…elephant…that’s what it was next to her. Broken. But a bunch of shiny things had fallen out of it. Imogene grabbed a few when no one was looking.
“Nothing? No blankets anywhere?”
Amelia’s voice again. Imogene saw she was holding a handful of data sticks she absentmindedly crammed into her pocket before she slipped back to being a very small child who squirmed because her diaper needed to be changed.
“Blood! Look at the floor!”
Amelia…
“She’s miscarrying!”
Shadows shifted about in Imogene’s mind again. An optical illusion snapped the other way. Like who was like miscarrying? It couldn’t like be her because she wasn’t pregnant. Those pains were effin’ menstrual cramps. Where was her phone? Where was ^URS? These others were like ridiculous. Real Life was ridiculous. They were talking about her mother. RL was so funny. Imogene laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Didn’t they know she’d never like ever had a mother?
