Sweat was slick on her brow, and the ringing in her ears drowned out the drones of the EKG and her husbands endearing yelps. She tasted the taint of blood in her mouth, and the stinging odor of disinfectants and must. Mouths moved rapidly, but it was as if they were distant, like she were resting at the bottom of a still lake, staring up at the figures beyond the surface.

Fire erupted in her abdomen like a snake of barbed wire were being dragged through her guts, and a high-pitched wail rang out through her head. It was only after her throat went raw that she realized the screams had been coming from her, but in that blur of pain and fatigue, who could really be sure?

She heard the distant voices from above, commanding her to give it her all. One last push.

In her dazed state she envisioned the pond stirring, the waters going red and churning like rapids. It boiled, and her skin seemed to burn off, but all at once healed.

She awoke from the bloody waters of her trance, drenched upon that hospital bed with her husband squeezing her limp hand. Her eyes were still blurry with tears, but through it all, she could see the form of a slippery child, cradled within the doctor's hands.

He was so tiny, so vulnerable. He, she thought, he is. . .my son. Her doctor had told her as much the weeks leading up to the birthday when the little boy kicked and trashed like he wanted to break out. He was a boy, alright, and she believed it. There was no way a dainty little girl could cause so much pain. He’d be rugged, she thought, big and hot-headed like his father was. She could see it now; the mud speckled face of her beaming child, hands buried in wet earth. She could see the little fingers of the boy wrap around his schoolbag straps as he disappeared into the throng of his peers, and finally she saw the young man before her, closing the door behind him to the sound of a van starting and his own children sqaubbling. She saw visions of him growing from a callow seed to a feathered bird, and it all swirled together, forming into the pink child that lay still in her doctor's hands.

But something was wrong, and as the doctor stared in horror at her nether regions, barking orders and commands to his aids frantically, she could hear her EKG quicken to the pulse of her bosom. Her husband squeezed her hands, his face tense and filmed with sweat. What was happening, she thought, just let me hold my son.

The doctor glanced down at the child in his arms, and the look that crossed the aged man's face was that of one who’s stared into the mouth of hell. His skin curdled like milk,  and the child slipped from his fingers, an egg racing towards the bloodspattered linoleum floor.

The child fell into the hands of a quick young nurse, the doctor stumbling back and crashing into a cabinet of surgery utensils. Assistance rushed over to the old doctor, tending to him while the nurse cradled the silent child in her arms. The poor mother wanted to demand that she hold her own child, but her voice died in her throat at the sight of the young nurses face. Deep lines of twisted disgust cut into her smooth skin, and her arms shook. But before the mother could see her child fall again, his father was at the nurse's side, lifting the baby from the wilted woman.

He came racing back to his wife's side, cradling the silent, unmoving newborn in his hairy arms. She reached out, to at least touch the soft hair upon the babes head, to feel the child that they all bizarrely feared.

But as her hands neared her son's head, the arms that held him trembled, and as the baby for a third time slipped from it’s own fathers weak hands, the mother reached out, and caught the little seed.

She pulled the still child to her chest, cradling him beneath her chin and sharing her warmth with the cold babies slick skin. Her husband collapsed to the floor, his eyes glazed over and head lolled to the side. The EKG softened to a whisper, and the beat in her bosom fell just near still. With eyelids heavy and skin pale, she stroked her silent child's dark curls, her fingers sliding through the strands and resting on the damp, red blankets.

The beat in her bosom sank below the pond, distant just like the chaos around her. But before the dark could converge unto her, she felt her child move, his little head tilting up to stare into his mother's fading eyes.

The little baby girl smiled wide, her pretty, blood-stained teeth twinkling in the light of that dimming delivery room.