Womb

Though the days flew past her driveway, she never once thought about the way the wind used to feel on her skin. Though the sun rose and set in the confines of her windows, she never once wondered about its warmth on her face. And though the nights seemed only to stretch longer and darker, she never ventured past the threshold of her doorway. The entirety of her world was confined to this little house. Within the walls removed from a world she had once tried so lamely to embrace. 

The seconds stretched out for days. The moments simply hung in the air keeping every weighted breath suspended between the previous and the next. Things were not in slow motion. Everything moved twice as quickly. There were just more languid moments shoved into those previously brief spaces. It hadn’t occurred to her to care before.

Her hands shook as she replaced the phone to its original position on the kitchen counter. The cool of the smooth teal tile shocked her hand. Outside of the involuntary reflex of her fingers, no emotion registered on her face. The news no more a surprise than the rising sun. She had been warned of this possibility. Though, now, the idea that she had been warned at all seemed ridiculous. You can’t prepare someone to lose something they never had and, now, never will. Her eyes moved slowly across the bowls and ingredients piled upon the counter; assembled to make herself breakfast.

            Her actions were deliberate. She paused too often and her breath was too steady. She gently lifted an egg from the carton and rolled its smooth surface in her hands. The weight always amazed her. Something so small, and so fragile, carried with it so much weight.  Decisively, she struck it against the edge of the bowl breaking, forever what had never been and emptied its contents into the waiting flour.

“Two eggs.” Her voice echoed across the room startling no one but herself. The cacophony made her painfully aware of the permanent vacancy in the chairs around her.

            The high wooden back on her stool dug into her flesh and pinched at her elbows. Outside the world was blanketed in white. She sat perfectly still wishing to hear the rustling of leaves. But the snow mocked her, no leaves would be found. She swore that if she tried hard enough she could will into existence one leaf that would be perfectly green. Flawless, it would sprout out of the ice covered branches. One leaf would be all it would take to solidify in her the hope she never allowed herself, but the leaf never came.

            She took out a second egg. Tracing the familiar shape with her eyes and wishing things didn’t have to be the way they were bound to be. Once again, she felt the weight. The full, crushing weight of what she held, what she used to hold. She clenched her hand into a fist causing shards of shell onto the floor and yolk to run like rivers from her fingers.