rofessor Rowe was conducting an experiment on Charlotte under hypnosis. In this instance, he asked her to expand her soul to fill, not merely the universe, but all possible space and non-space. Once she was relaxed, he asked her to speak.
“In the end, there is darkness, and the darkness is good. You would not recognize this darkness. In what you know of dark, there is always the threat of light. It is there in minute presence. It is throughout the universe. The darkness that you know is not pure, it is not true. It has none of the coolness, the cleanness, the stresslessness of the darkness of the end. In the end, there is no conflict, no fear, no change. The push and pull of light and dark as it tears you apart is over. The battle is finished, the useless, senseless attack of light against overwhelming darkness has exhausted itself, and in the end there is only darkness, and the darkness is good. Perhaps the truth shall be difficult to ascertain. Perhaps it will be impossible. But somewhere is the truth, amorphous and immaterial. It slides from your grasp. It slips around inside your subconscious mind, tingling, tantalizing, teasing you with its nearness. Then it flies away, as quick as a dream. And it is gone.”
Charlotte stopped speaking. During these sessions, she would sometimes lie speechless for hours. This time, it was merely minutes.
“To kill and to die are one and the same. To be with one on his deathbed, to empathically, vicariously, experience death, is to die. To bring death is the power of death and life. In death there is life. Life is coming, a bright life. There will be a child born, near, very near. This child is fraught with meaning. This child has a gift. This gift is a gift of interpretation. The great interpreter will give meaning to all things, all things have meaning. Truth and lies are inseparable. Truth is meaning. Lies are meaning. You have already foreseen this child. You know of its coming, but you did not understand that you knew. In this child is what you seek. Seek this child.”
Melissa became pregnant almost immediately after her wedding. John was overjoyed at the thought of impending fatherhood. He fussed over her and catered to her and stressed that she should not work too hard. He wanted her to rest, to eat well, to stay healthy for the sake of the child.
Her mother, also, fussed over the pregnant woman. The expectation of a grandchild filled her woman’s heart. She knitted presents for the coming child and kept house for the young couple, assuring that Melissa would not overstrain herself.
Melissa enjoyed the first six months of pregnancy. She slept late in the mornings, which her mother thought was a good idea. “I never felt myself in the mornings when I was pregnant,” she said. “Let me bring you breakfast up here. You must keep your strength up. It is so important that you eat properly.”
Unlike her mother, Melissa never experienced morning sickness. The changes in her body seemed subtle and unimportant. She did whatever she wanted, and her husband and mother waited on her each day.
Then, the growing child began to intrude itself upon her life. She began having difficulty lifting the weight strapped to her waist. She would lie in bed, not because she wanted to rest, but because her back ached when she stood.
This made Melissa irritable.
She became impatient and restless.
She became trapped, weighed down by this squirming, wriggling creature in her stomach. It made its presence felt.
For three months, her annoyance grew.
On the day of the child’s birth, Melissa woke in the early morning. She felt as if two hands were pushing down on her abdomen, powerful, ghostly muscles seeking to crush her. She cried out in her bed, and her husband woke.
“What is it? What is it?” she was shouting.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” her husband joined in chorus.
She screamed and then settled. The pain was easing, the hands moving away from her stomach.
“Hands, invisible hands,” she said.
“What hands?”
“Pressing against me, pushing against me.”
The door to their bedroom opened, and Melissa’s mother came in, also awakened by the commotion. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“There were hands, pressing on my, pressing on my stomach, ghostly hands, invisible hands.”
“Relax, my darling,” her mother said, and sat on the bed beside her. “It’s come, the baby is coming.”
John took his wife’s hand, which was white and shaking, and pressed it between his palms.
“Our baby,” he said. “I must get the doctor. Stay with her, Mama Magdalene, you’ll know how to care for her.”
“We don’t need the doctor, yet,” said Magdalene. “It’s liable to be quite a while, you know.”
“We don’t need a doctor?” shouted Melissa. “What about the pain?”
“Lie quietly, Melissa, we will see you through it.”
“Of course,” said John. “I don’t know why I’m such an idiot. I’ve birthed hundreds of animals.”
“I’m not an animal!” Melissa interjected. “I’m your wife!”
“Hush, darling,” said Magdalene. “She’s frightened.”
“Of course I’m frightened.”
“You’re okay. You will be okay. Get some water, John, and some towels. Can you take some water, dear?”
“I don’t want water.”
“Okay, darling. When it gets to a more reasonable time of the morning, we’ll go for the doctor. You’ll keep just fine until then.”
Melissa lay back on the bed, her stomach weighing against her, the throbbing of pain still a residue in her memory.
”My God! The hands! Get them off of me! Get them off!”
“Is she delirious?”
“No, she is fine. How long has it been?”
“Half an hour? Maybe more.”
“Get it out of me! Out! Out!”
“Hush, darling.”
“We still have a wait, quite a wait. Don’t worry, everything is fine.”
“Get it out!”
”My God! Won’t it stop!”
“It’s only been a few minutes.”
“We’re close now.”
“I can’t stand this room anymore!”
“Go wait outside. Go care for the horses. A man needs to be busy at a time like this.”
“Okay. I love you, darling.”
“Get out! Go, why don’t you! Get out!”
She felt as if she would break. She felt as if the thing inside her was pushing out of her, right through her skin, distending her, breaking her. She could see herself bursting open, red and wet, raw beef.
She screamed, sighed, panted. A wet towel was on her forehead. There was something in her hand, and Melissa squeezed it, crushed it. She had no strength, no effort, no resistance. Her body was moving without her, changing, reforming. The thing inside of her was shaping her to its will. She would soon lose all consciousness, all self. This was transformation.
She fought, alternating between wanting to stop it completely and to push it out of herself, but she had no breath and no life left in her. It wore her out. It tore through her.
“Push,” the doctor said. “Push.”
She had nothing to push with. She had no control of her muscles. She ached as if she had run for days.
Her body pushed without her will. The doctor praised her. Her mother said comforting nonsensical things. Parts of her were breaking, inside. Parts of her were sloughing off, leaving her. Parts of her were crushed and gasping, dying while still attached to her living body.
This lasted forever. This lasted for eternity.
Then, there was the sound of a baby crying.
“Congratulations,” said the doctor. “You have a baby girl.”
Her mother had left her side. Her mother had something in her arms. They were all hovering over it, washing it, tending it.
It cried.
They brought it to her, as an offering for her pain. It was small and wrinkled, and its face was distorted into an unpleasant grimace. She held it in her arms with a distaste that instinctively she hid.
“I’m exhausted,” she said. “Take it, mother.”
The doctor left the room. Melissa handed the infant to a doting grandmother.
“She is beautiful,” said the grandmother.
The door opened, and John came in.
“A girl!” he said. “Can I see her? Can I hold her?”
He went to the baby, and again there was a small gathering around the child, all attention on the child, all attention on the infant.
Melissa passed out.
The day that the child was born, Charlotte was in her father’s study, waiting on him to begin one of his many “experiments.” She was sitting on the soft, warm sofa, staring blankly at nothing in particular. Charlotte was tired and cranky. Her head was hurting her. Everything about her body and her existence seemed to ache unmanageably. As she stared, she tried to imagine Nanette in some other place on the other side of the world. She tried to put herself there, so far away. She tried to be there, in a field, in a place with apples instead of oranges.
And, mistily at a midway point to the wood paneled wall, she saw the wild girl sitting on the ground eating an apple. As Charlotte sat, waiting, waiting, Montague walked into the room.
The cat walked across to where Nanette sat, munching on the apple, only a translucent projection. He looked up at her and meowed.
Nanette stopped biting at the apple and looked down at where the cat stood, among the weeds. These cats, there were many of them on the farm. They were not usually friendly. One could bark at them to scare them off. They were liable to scratch one’s nose.
But this cat was not acting like most cats.
This cat looked at her and half-closed its eyes. Then it spoke again.
Nanette sniffed the air, to catch the scent of the cat, but it was elusive. She put her hand out to the cat’s face, and the cat sniffed her hand delicately. It was not like a dog. It was much smaller, much less rough, much less excited.
The cat rubbed up against her hand, and she stroked its fur. It was soft. There was something thrilling about the cat. She had never realized this before.
Charlotte’s father walked into the room, and the vision disappeared. Charlotte continued to stare into space.
“Charlotte,” he said. Then he said it again, more sharply, “Charlotte.” The cat ran out of the room.
Slowly, Charlotte turned her head, looking at her father.
“You were off in wild places for the moment,” he said. He brought out his dangling, glowing pendulum that would move her off into an alternate existence.
”What is your name?” asked the doctor.
“What is your favorite name?” the voice countered. It was a soft voice, southern, that always seemed to be laughing at you.
“It doesn’t matter. I want your real name.”
“I don’t have a real name,” said the voice.
“I have never met you before,” the doctor said.
“This body,” the voice said, “this body was the body of a little girl. Now it is a woman’s body. I am a woman—I can’t exist in the body of a little girl. And you, my dear sir, are a man. It takes a man to see a woman. Am I right?”
As she talked, she demonstrated the womanliness of the body, young still, youthful still, but the body now of a woman.
|
|
