My Dry Womb

(Human Environment)

It’s warm and muffled in here. The air is stale and dark, and dirty second-hand light seeps through the old glass windows that compose the majority of the door.

I am huddled under one of the bottom shelves, using some towels and forgotten linens as bedding. I reach up and run my tiny fingers along the rough hewn wood of the shelf, risking splinters, massaging the dry, loose fibers. They become soft and pliable from the oil on my fingers. The shelves emanate the slow smell of their deterioration, filling the back of my throat with their flavor. The linens of my nest smell like the shelves, their aroma mingling with the sweet smell of fabric softener coating the towels.

I look up and around the small linen closet, sensing more than actually seeing the shelves. They line two of the walls from a foot or two above the cracked and peeling linoleum floor to a foot from the asbestos-filled ceiling. An ironing board stands against the shelfless wall across from me. The shelves are filled with clean towels and sheets, and clothes awaiting the restorative touch of my mother. A small teddy bear, clad in purple overalls, silently spills his life blood of batten on a shelf directly above me. Even though I cannot see him from my nest, he has been here for quite some time. Once beloved but now forgotten, he sits patiently, perhaps praying for death, perhaps praying for my brother to remember and reclaim him.

The small room, its location within the bathroom, and its contents all conspire to stifle outside noises. I can hear my family moving about the house, but as if they are on another plane of existence. And to me, in this moment, they are. The only real sounds come from me – my breathing, humming and orations to invisible spectators. Eventually, my mouth quiets but my mind does not. I shift, making the floor creak, as my mind creaks under the weight of my thoughts. My reverie makes me sleepy and I sink deeper into the fabrics of my dry womb.

Suddenly, there is a cascade of falling water behind the wood panelling of the wall beside me and I awake with a start, momentarily disorientated, feeling the weightless vertigo of going over a waterfall. The water sounds as if it is actually pouring between the walls, uncontained by the lead pipes that snake their way throughout our house. The door groans quietly on its sticky hinges and my Mom pokes her head in behind me.

“Amanda?” I am not aware of there having been a spell until it is broken by her voice.

“Yeah,” I reply drowsily.

She laughs. “Come on, it’s time for dinner.”

I crawl out from my little nest, rubbing my eyes.

“I don’t understand why you like this place.” She grins to herself the way adults do when confronted by the odd habits of children. I squint my eyes against the assault of the unfiltered light as I emerge into the bathroom. I can’t tell her why I like this place, either, but her grin tells me that’s okay.