Unhatched

A bright evening on the Tuesday of April 3rd. The wind toyed with the dark strands of a woman whose eyes were focused on the blue-covered book in her hands, eager to reach its last pages. The woman was draped in a loose-fitting chiffon dress, providing room for her and the two nestled in her womb. Her elbows, knuckles, and knees were considerably darker than the rest of her body which allowed for the people of that time to understand the role she played within society.

Her presence was to be enjoyed by a wraparound porch decorated with a swing, a rocking chair, and a small table holding two books– the ghost of the third laid on top of them. Every night, the rocking chair would lose its only friend when the man of the house would come home. Seeing that his fiancée had been sitting on the porch all day, he would gently take her by the hands and lead her inside before the sun could depart.

Their home, surrounded by beautiful farmland, was not very big but large enough for the small dreamlike family. The kitchen was well-kept by talented hands and the living room was neatly decorated as well, with a new couch and a fireplace inventing and maintaining the coziness within the room. A black chandelier hung from above, surrounded by animal heads on each wall, fake of course, as the progressiveness of the couple ran through the home, and hunting was done only sustainably.

The reading room at the back of the house held all kinds of books. The most popular ones as of recent were Twins Preparation Guide and Mother of Twins: Doing Everything Twice and More. The newest addition of children's books were given their own shelf closest to ground level.

Only a few feet in front of the adult bedroom were stairs spiraling up to a wooden door. On the door were two barn owl stickers, animated to represent the innocence of childhood. Behind it was a room so empty yet so full. Empty because the clothes in the closet had not yet been worn and the cribs on either wall had not yet been slept in. However, it was so full because tired hands had worked the seams of tiny onesies and gathered the wood to build the rocking chair by the window. The energy within the room waited to be consumed by the two bodies hidden underneath a sheath of skin. The sun, cloud, and grass paintings on the walls grew arms and caressed the woman’s stomach, encouraging the children to come out and play. Toy maracas and drums hoped to help small hands deliver melodies within the near future.

The father of the man had built their home in the mid-1980s and, following his passing only ten years later, was inherited by the man. The barn to the right of the house was built earlier, but there was no exact date depicting its construction nor had the family been able to make an estimated guess on the time it was built. The barn was a typical maroon color with a white gambrel roof and white bordering around its windows. It was a small barn with only one room but it was tall and big enough to store seeds and manure for farming. It also held different sorts of mechanical machines that the woman’s eyes completely disregarded, letting her fiancé deal with all those wacky things.

What really intrigued her was the cheeping noise that came from the high beams of the barn. To see what was going on above, the woman’s fiancé would climb a tall ladder and snap a few photos to present to his love as soon as he returned to the ground. Her excited hands zoomed into the center of the image. In a dark corner, protected by the walls and general structure of the barn’s ceiling, were two feathered bodies, staring with wide eyes.

The owls’ faces were a simple white; usually always clean, but still not immune to dirt. Brown hairs bordered their faces, making them appear perfectly heart-shaped. When faced with adversity, a horrific scream would leave their mouths, instantly making their pretty faces of less importance. Their golden-brown feathers were complemented by dark brown– almost black– patches and their soft bellies were responsible for maintaining the purity of their kind. Finally, their sharp talons gripped the earth, always treading slowly and with specific intent.

Swiping through her fiancé’s gallery, the female bird rose to switch places with her male companion. Four shiny white eggs were revealed from underneath her belly before they were quickly covered again by the father’s. A smile lit up on the woman’s face. The man would climb up and down the ladder every day, providing her with a new update on the brooding of the owl eggs. She hoped to see the babies hatch before she was due at the hospital.

“It takes about a month for the eggs of the Tyto alba to hatch,” her fiancé informed her.

So the woman waited, but 32 days had passed and the chicks were still comfortably nestled within their eggs while, on the porch, a puddle appeared around the woman’s feet. It was only then, when the woman was rushed into her car, that the first egg hatched. A small fragile pink body began to leave its egg. The mother owl helped her baby out of its shell by breaking the protective layer with her beak as the father owl looked on in curiosity. The newborn chick cuddled underneath its mother, seeking warmth and protection, and waited for its siblings to join.

The ride to the hospital was scary, yet exciting, as their new children were on the way! The car seats and duffle bags in the back of the car shook with careful excitement and the woman in the passenger seat cried out as the contractions on her uterus became apparent.

She was in labor for hours, far into the night, and avoided her bed at all costs, looking for distractions: slow walks around the hospital, counting the different colored candies in the vending machine, leaning against the walls to watch the nurses and patients go by– anything to not feel what felt like every single muscle in her body working against her.

In an instant, the colors of the vending machine candies were replaced with colors that could only be described as euphoric– colors that only the woman could see. Her primary view was no longer Caramel chocolate but instead, the bright ceiling of a hospital room. She chose the typical lithotomy position: laid on her back, legs up and apart and her face towards the ceiling. A light blue sheet covered the lower half of her body. Her fiancé, who she so desperately wanted to call her husband at this moment, stood by her side. His golden ring grazed her fingers as they held hands. His eyes had a sparkle in them that she had never seen before. Meanwhile, back at the barn, a second egg began to hatch.

Screams filled the hospital room and beyond. The woman’s voice traveled through the halls, and the elderly lady in the next room prayed for her safe delivery. She was encouraged by the doctor and nurses to control her breathing and push at intervals of ten seconds. Sweat began to creep up on her head as she squeezed her fiancé’s hand, turning his palm as red as her face.

The happy colors in the woman’s eyes were expressed through groans, grunts, and cries until, suddenly, a strong pressure was released from her body, before a second one quickly rested upon it again. However, the woman could not focus on pushing out her second child. The colors in her eyes tapped on her shoulder. Black, grey, and white colors collided with the bright shades of purple, yellow, and orange she originally saw when she laid her head on that pillow.

Looks of distress appeared in the trained eyes of the women who studied for years to receive a spot in that room; the same women who shuffled back and forth from the incubator in the corner of the room. There were not this many nurses present when she began her delivery. It dawned upon the woman that her first child had not made any noise or cried after being delivered. She lifted her body up onto its elbows in order to see what was occurring in the corner of the room. A female nurse approached her side and assured her that all is well and to focus on the delivery of baby number two.

“Your first baby experienced some distress during the delivery but we are currently warming him up and a cry will ensue very soon. It is nothing to worry about.” the nurse looked her in the eyes. “It's important that you breathe and focus on delivering your second child.”

Reluctantly, the woman’s head fell back onto its pillow. Something didn’t feel right within her, however, she didn’t wish to disobey the orders of medical staff, potentially causing a scene and being branded as difficult. A few grunts and groans later, the woman noticed the pale expression on her fiancé’s face and his loosening grip on her hand. A male nurse appeared next to him and grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to keep him steady as he slightly stumbled, losing his balance. The woman’s heart jumped into her throat and she tried to glance down towards herself, but the stupid blue sheet draped above her hips stopped her from seeing anything. She felt the legs and feet of a small body leave her.

***

Doctor's notes:

Child one. Succumbed to knotted umbilical cord causing lack of oxygen.

Child two. Succumbed to placental abruption causing lack of oxygen.

On the way home, the car seats tried their best to make their presence go unnoticed.

***

For the next 14 weeks, all the woman refused to do was avoid her bed. She felt as though the house mocked her. The once-wet porch mocked her. The children’s room, being only a few feet away from hers, mocked her. The rocking chair by the window upstairs mocked her. The cribs mocked her, and the books, especially the books, stuck its tongue out and laughed in her face.

The high chairs in the kitchen and the seats in the car made their way into storage. The woman allowed for the man to clean up everything but demanded that the room and books remain untouched. He followed her orders.

While his fiancée lay in bed, the man spent his 14 weeks chopping wood. Every day, a new tree stump sat in front of him and he would hit it with his axe– not just any axe but his axe, the axe he carved himself. Each stump was hit differently– starting from the right side, the left side, straight down the middle, and any other way he could think of. Some days he would only chip it, not getting the big chop he had hoped to. A pile of wood lay at the edge of the field. He swore that someday he would burn it, but not anytime soon.

The woman always chose to lay on her side… a habit she picked up during her pregnancy. Moreover, she was not ready to lay on her stomach and feel the ghost of the two with whom she spent nine months. This side position allowed her to look out the window and watch her fiancé chop wood all day. He always did it a few feet in front of the barn– the only place that didn’t seem to mock her.

It seemed as though every day the man would place his tree stump closer and closer to the barn without realizing. One day, he would put more power into his axe and draw it further back, piercing the wooden walls of the barn which would creak, calling out to him: Look. Look at the wood that has already been made decades– centuries earlier.

This glimpse into the possible future made the woman sit upright on her bed, suddenly remembering the owls. A positive that came from having a newly flat stomach was that she could now use the ladder on her own while her fiancé continued to aggressively chop outside.

She placed the ladder a few feet away from the owl nest and slowly climbed up only to find an abandoned home. Two eggshells sat there– open and empty. The past inhabitants of the shells were already fully grown and flew away to live a life on their own. Tears entered the woman’s eyes, upset at the fact that she wasn’t able to see the hatching of the chicks. She climbed up onto the ledge and sat in the dirt next to the nest. It was now late August and the mating season was over. No bird would nest there for a while. All the feelings from the last 14 weeks began to leave her eyes.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

She wished he would put that fucking axe down.

32 minutes had passed before, through the waterfall that covered her eyes, she spotted something. Further into the dark corner were two eggs: perfectly round and unhatched. Getting up onto her knees, the woman scrambled towards them and picked them up, feeling the weight that never left their shells. She remembered her fiancé telling her that it was common for one or two eggs to not hatch. Her heart felt so tender as she slowly lowered them back down into the dirt, staring in awe. She laid next to them, not caring about the dirt that would get into her face and hair.

As she laid there, staring so heavily at the eggs, the barn confirmed that it did not lie. Centuries worth of nest debris layers containing unhatched eggs existed beneath where the woman lay. .. and all the men and women who laid beneath her knew what it was like to experience their own bright evening on the Tuesday of April 3rd.