“Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get.”
~Gwendolyn Brooks
The scratching is relentless. For the past three hours it has seemed like a dog has been trying to dig its way under my apartment door. I opt to ignore the sound and drink my beer while I gaze into the fire. Maybe the sound is an alcohol induced hallucination.
My thoughts return to the plain and simple fact; I am too young to have a child. Becky didn’t agree with me, as she had chosen to carry the child to term. I tried to convince her to have an abortion, still, she resisted. I tried to convince her to put the child up for adoption, again, met with resistance. I was at the end of my rope, when I thought up a most devious plan.
I’ve mingled with drugs in my past. Who hasn’t? So I called up my old coke dealer and inquired about an herb that I had heard about; an herb that would kill a fetus and efficiently terminate a pregnancy. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I feel guilty over this fact; I feel guilty as hell.
The dealer happily hooked me up with this herb and I hastily called Becky to set up a dinner date. My plan was set in motion as I heard Becky’s excited voice agree to meet me for dinner. I’m not the most romantic person you could meet, so I knew that this ploy would work wonders on her.
She arrived at my apartment and I set the mood with candle light, music and a toasty fire. It wasn’t too cold; being as it was only September, but the
The scratching ceases for a moment and I pause to ponder this new development. This is the first break I have had from the scratching in sometime and it was beginning to give me a headache. The scratching continues and I slip back into my thoughts.
I’m not educated in such things. I can honestly say that I expected the results to be instantaneous and was shocked when the ingestion of the herb seemed to have no effect on her at all. Here is where I felt my first pangs of regret. It was already over; there was no turning back, no matter how guilty I felt. We watched a movie together before she retired to her apartment.
Then, scared to death about being found out, I decided it prudent to retreat to my bedroom to sleep my worried mind to ease. I should have researched the herb better, at least I may have known what to expect. This I figured was a criminal act and I did not want any ties leaving a trail back to me. I didn’t even try to Google the herb; I knew it could be traced back to me if she had an autopsy performed on her “miscarried” child.
The phone rang and awoke me from my dreamless slumber. I answered it and heard Becky’s terrified voice.
“Rick, you need to come over right away! I think I’ve lost the baby!” I glanced at the clock and saw that it read 8:01. I clinched my fists, gritted my teeth and closed my eyes; knowing the deed was done and it was almost over with.
“I’ll be over soon as I can.”
After hanging up the phone, I gritted my teeth again. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh, cry or throw up. I had just murdered a child out of selfishness but I knew there was nothing that I could do about it. At least I hadn’t screwed it up.
Driving Becky to the hospital was a daunting task. She had towels tucked between her legs to soak up the blood and I still had that sick, hysterical, depressed feeling inside. The smell of blood in my car didn’t help that feeling. I had to be a great actor, somewhat. I was genuinely concerned for Becky’s health, that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was to seem stunned by the whole turn of events. I also had an unbearable feeling of dread about the hospital; what if they know what I had done?
Becky gave birth to a still-born baby girl. It weighed only five pounds, but she named it and declined to have it autopsied, much to my relief. I comforted her the best I could and she was released after further observations two days later.
The baby’s name was Penelope Lee. The name saddened me further as I thought it was the most adorable girl’s name and for some reason it just seemed to suit the infant. I asked Becky to come over tonight but she refused, saying she would rather be alone for a little while.
That scratching sound I hear could only be the rats. It couldn’t be little Penelope coming back to gather her revenge. She will always haunt me, but those horrid scratching sounds at my door have caused me to revisit the events of the previous three days. I open another beer and gaze into the fire at the future of a little girl that would never happen, thanks to me.
Of course, the scratching is intense and blocking it out is nearly impossible. It could be a stray dog; some mongrel simply looking for something to eat. I decide to ignore the fears and the goose bumps on my neck and investigate the sound.
Placing my ear softly to the door, the scratching hastens to the sound of static rushing out of the speakers of a radio that isn’t quite on the correct station. Taking a step back, the sound slows a bit. Incredulous to the latest hastiness of the scratching, I reach out and throw the door open, exposing the dimly lit corridor that poses as a hallway in this decrepit apartment building. For a brief second, I catch a glimpse of the worn wallpaper on the hallway wall; daisies, in a retro 1976 fashion. Then I see the tiny figure standing upright at my feet.
“Check er tree…” The infant greets me with gibberish. Her pale face a stark contrast to the dark hallway, her hair a fine goose down atop her head. She is outfitted in the yellow ducky preemie onesie that Becky dressed her in after she was cleaned up.
“No! It’s not possible!” I croak through a parched throat with a scared shitless accent. Penelope takes a step forward and I take a step backwards.
“Daddy, old me.” The infant growls; extending her arms up in a futile effort to be embraced. “Old me, Daddy!” Every move of her lips exposes a thin layer of teeth that have barely broken the gum line. Infants aren’t supposed to have teeth; I know that for a fact.
Check er tree? Check whose tree? I scour the room, looking for anything to defend myself against this tiny undead creature. My eyes lock on the fire poker and I make a dash for it.
“Check er tree, Daddy. Old me, old me please.”
“You stay back! You shouldn’t be here!”
“Ere? Ere, ere, ere, I am ere, Daddy! Check er tree!”
That voice is intolerable! It sounds as though she is talking through a throat full of phlegm. As if the thought conjured it up, Penelope vomits up a stream of clear fluid and spits it on my floor.
“Hold me, Daddy! I am here, hold me!”
Now, through a clear voice I can hear her words precisely. She continues to advance and I brace the poker for a swing. The smell is awful, I’ve smelled dead things before, but they never smelled like this.
“Check er tree! Hold me, Daddy!”
What could this infant mean by such a phrase as "check er tree?" She toddles forward and I swing the poker, aimed with the precise desire to take off the dead infant's head.
“Missed me, Daddy.” And with that, she lets out the most horrible little chuckle I have ever heard in my life. She laughs like I am the silliest daddy in the world to think that I could hit my own child with a fire poker. The flames dance a reflection in her hazy, glossy eyes. The eyes sunken into their sockets is repulsive enough, but that pale face! It looks like she got into her mother’s powder and had a field day! This however, is no costume.
“Get back! I don’t know what you are, but I am not your daddy!”
She extends her arms again and I reel a few more steps backwards. “Hold me, hold me please!”
“Get back, I said!” I swing the poker straight down and strike something solid. I peek through the tiniest slits my eyelids allow to find that I had struck nothing but the floor. Another horrible little chuckle echoed throughout my apartment.
“Missed me, missed me! Now ya gotta kiss me!” She titters in between her giggles.
Missed her? I couldn’t have missed her! Another hasty retreat on my part and I think I should have never opened the door. I can’t believe I thought it was a dog or a rat, I should’ve known who it was. “Leave me alone, God damn you!”
“God damn, God damn, God damn. God damned you, Daddy. You killed me, so God damned you straight to hell.” She said the last sentence with cold calculation through squinted eyes, as if it were a matter of fact and wasn’t worth her time to state.
She continues to advance; I continue to retreat. I feel something bump my calves and I find myself falling to the floor. I tripped over the leg rest to my recliner that I thoughtlessly left engaged.
Penelope’s tiny figure dances in a shadowed rhythm to the flames in the fireplace. I scurry to my hands and knees and find myself almost eye to eye with my murdered daughter. She cups my cheek in her hand, the coldest hand I could ever imagine and my skin begins to crawl. Through puckered lips she utters, “Gimmie a kiss!”
I hustle back to my feet and she abruptly stops and locks eyes with me. “You’re so unfair! I wanted to go to school; I could’ve gone to prom! I could’ve learned to drive; I should’ve gotten married and had children of my own! But my daddy had to be a selfish jerk!” She sounds as though she is a teenager having a temper tantrum. She advances again, this time her legs have a more hurried gait.
“Stay away! Please, leave me alone!” I stumble back another step and find my back against the wall. There has never been a time in humanity that defined the “back against the wall” saying as this time did now.
I sprint forward and line the infant up like a place kicker lines up a football for an opening kickoff. I put every bit of energy behind the kick and am astonished to see the infant nimbly side step my kick; as if she knew it was coming.
The momentum of the missed kick carries me into an out of control, stumble/run/fall and I nose dive into the open fireplace. Flames immediately engulf the high school alumni sweatshirt I am wearing and I shove myself back out of the fireplace and onto my living room floor.
Like I was trained in elementary school; I roll along the floor in a panicked attempt to extinguish the flames. I hear my daughter’s delighted giggles over the sounds of the flames cracking within my ears. I find that the rolling isn’t extinguishing the flames, but igniting the carpet in my apartment instead.
The pain is excruciating as my mind wonders how much more of this I must endure before I mercifully die. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I killed you!” I shout, hoping my daughter will have some mercy.
“I’m sorry, too. But sorry won’t bring you back, will it?” How could she know this? How could she walk and talk? My only hope is that death will be the end and not the beginning.
----------
Clarity returns through a faded gray smoke. I sit up and realize it was only a nightmare and regain my feet. Then I notice the smoldering body on the floor. Is it me? Is that charred, blackened body my former host?
"Now we can be together forever, Daddy!"
I shiver and slowly turn to see Penelope standing before me with her tiny stature escalated by her upraised arms. I can't escape her; not even in death. There is a burnt spot on the carpet, but the fire seems to have been extinguished along with my life.
"Hold me!" She shouts and I return my startled attention to her. What will I do now? I can't face God, I don't want to go to Hell. I am stuck, here with her. I will not hold her, I will not touch her. She repulses me and that is the saddest thing of all.
"The Red Man wants to see you." She says and the floor abruptly tears open at my feet, exposing a soft green glow which is floating up a steep staircase. My downstairs neighbor’s apartment was supposed to be in that place, I guess all bets are off when you are dead.
"Go on!" At my daughters insistence, a carefully begin my descent down the cold green stairway. She follows, sitting her butt down on every step and easing herself on to the next one. I feel bad for her struggles and I suddenly realize a fact that would have been nice to know twenty minutes ago; she can’t hurt me, and I can’t hurt her. I drop my inhibitions and offer her a scorched hand to help her down the stairs. She accepts it with a devilish grin and I notice her hand is no longer cold. Apparently I am now just as cold as she is.
Once at the bottom, I am greeted by the site of a concrete room with tiny cells with tight wound bars to ensure that none of the little prisoners can escape.
"Greetings! Come, come sit down." Said a man who, like my daughter had announced, was quite red. "I do believe we have business." I glance above the tiny cells and see a shelf enclosed by glass with what appears to be millions upon millions of jars filled with some green substance. It slowly dawned on me what this place was; a warehouse for every child that was never born.
The man doesn't seem to be a demon. He is simply a regular guy with a bright scarlet skin tone. The man is wearing a white suit adorned with a carnation that is just red as he is. He sits in front of a coffee table with a deck of cards laid out in a Solitaire formation.
"My name is Cupid. Welcome to nothing. Nothing is everything and everything is nothing here and nobody has a birthday. A Neo Natal Purgatory."
"I'm confused.... I thought Cupid went around shooting arrows at couples to make them fall in love." I respond.
"Mortals are a confused group of souls. I am the Guardian of Love and whatever may come of it, including what you see here. Regardless, there is hardly enough time for a formal education on the subject. It hardly matters who I am. You have yet to answer your daughter's question. Trick or treat?"
"Trick or treat? This seems to me to be a big confusion of holidays."
"You are surrounded by unborn babies. These poor souls were aborted during their fetal stages. Your daughter was lucky to be murdered; she had the chance to make atonement for what you did. Which she pulled off quite nobly." He says, gracing Penelope with a warm smile. "Careful not to get too close to those cells, a child's spirit is infinite in power and it can ravage you to the pearly gates of Heaven or the ferocious depths of Hell. It is only after we are born and begin to live that our spirit is weakened; corrupted. I suppose that if any of these infants knew who you were or what you did, you would be in some serious trouble. Trick or treat?"
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!" I shout at Cupid.
"It means you must choose. Children often say it at Halloween which incidentally was also your daughter's due date. She wasn't saying 'Check er tree' you damned fool, she was saying 'trick or treat.' If you choose treat, the children are happy to get candy or other gifts and be on their way. If you choose trick, they often play you for a fool or vandalize your property. You never get to know what the trick will be anymore than the children get to know what the treat will be."
"Wasn't my life enough of a sacrifice?"
"Look around you. Were any of these lives enough of a sacrifice? You had a chance to live; a chance to be somebody. Instead you displayed what a vile soul you are. I'm not going to ask you again, Rick. Trick or treat?" His face shows no emotion and his voice is sobering in its earnestness.
Thinking fast isn't easy under such circumstances. The distractions are relentless. Aborted babies of all shapes and sizes surround me, including my daughter who now stands at my side. What is worse is the ceaseless chattering the infants are making. One child is going on and on about how his mommy is the greatest person who ever lived. Another one is singing nursery rhymes and yet another is reciting its ACB's in whatever order it decides to place the letters in. I would rather not be fooled, so I announce that I have chosen "treat."
"Ah, you have chosen! Well then, here's what your treat to your daughter will be; there is a rather vain woman conspiring to seduce a gentleman that is married to her friend. The seduction is almost complete and you will be transported to her uterus to be reborn. It is a rebirth that will never happen; her vanity overpowers her spirit and you will be aborted just like the rest of these children. And, just like the rest of these children, you will be sent back here to await your next opportunity for life. As you can see, this room is endless and you will be placed last in the line of never born infants."
He snaps his fingers and I suddenly receive a brilliant tour of the cosmos. Galaxies on top of galaxies and for a brief second I can grasp just how gigantic everything is. Imagine being caught between two gigantic mirrors that infinitely reflect each other and you will be able to begin to imagine the vastness of the universe and the pettiness of our fragile lives. I am then burst into a warm atmosphere with one thing on my mind; find the egg.
An infant can remember its past life or lives until roughly the age of five. I knew my end was coming and eight weeks later it came. To my horror I am exposed to a flash of light before being scraped from my happy home and into a cold metal dish. I hear the doctor tell the nurse, "Make sure we got it all." I am being referred to as "it?" The enlightenment I have received over the last 8 weeks has not prepared me for this and I suddenly realize that no creature deserves this fate. No matter what it did in any of its past lives.
The floor tears open again and Cupid emerges from the light green mist that envelopes the staircase. No one else can see him as he approaches me and adds my tiny corpse to a brand new green liquid filled jar.
"Come along my precious; it is time for you to await your opportunity for atonement." Cupid says in a grave, gravelly voice.
"Jesus loves me this I know, 'cause my bible tells me so..." Are the only words I can manage to sing as I descend into the light green abyss with my new guardian.
