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Show find that it has to have happened this way. There must be a moment when I am the chosen one and, regardless of how uneasy that girl that was me must feel in a body teetering on the edge of adolescence, the world must crack open in a sea of fabric and light. And what of that which the young man can not see? What is happening in the other rooms of the Kingsville County Hospital? What, for instance, is happening in the delivery room now that the doctor has returned with the father's decision? No one can say. The mother, the doctor's patient, has long been unconscious. Perhaps from the drugs, or the pain, or the grave amount of blood pooling beneath both body and bed, she has slipped into a comatose state. The baby, the daughter, is wedged in the birth canal, doubled up, her rear end first. The doctor, too, is not able to say for sure what has gone wrong. In his mind, he reviews his decisions, questions his choices, and considers the options that remain. At moments the delivery room has been noisy and panicked. There were the pain-filled screams of the then-conscious woman, the shouted commands of the doctor, and the urgent questions from the nurses. Now, as the doctor studies the rear end of the baby and considers how best to remove the body, it is as quiet as a library. The baby is a test question he works to get right. In the end, he chooses to fracture. With confidence born from a decision reached, he breaks her collarbone swiftly and in so doing severs the nerves in her neck. No longer worried about the fact that the umbilical cord has wrapped around her neck, denying her oxygen for long periods of time, he pulls the broken body out with forceps. Father waiting, mother unconscious, the body of the baby is dropped into a bucket |
