again at Haralia’s wasted concern.
— SEVEN —
THE FIRST FEW days were much the same. The patterns you presented repeated themselves; sounds and movements signifying the need for sleep, food or sanitation. I performed the requisite responses to your requests, marking my chart accordingly every time. I was encouraged. Your equation was simple. If you were not ingesting milk then you were sleeping, and the night was preserved for the latter, as it should be.
But on the seventh day you introduced new variables. It was before noon and I was feeding you, the bottle already having been primed with milk well in advance according to the routine I had established on my chart. The window was open and a light westerly breeze blew in, creating a sinusoidal wave along the line of six blankets drying outside.
Then you vomited.
This was new. I had only ever seen evidence of ejection from your back passage, witnessing it first hand, in fact, one evening when you added a squirt of fresh faeces to the collection in your blanket as I changed it. But I had seen nothing from your gullet. I stared down as milk, warm and half curdled by your stomach acids, oozed from your mouth over my hand and onto my lap. You looked up, appearing to be just as surprised as I was.
You coughed. There was still a pool in your mouth which had not been ejected, so I laid the bottle beside me and lifted you in order to clear the bubbling obstruction.
But there was no need, for your body had every intention of taking care of things itself. As I rotated you by 90 degrees, you made a deep, guttural belch and vomited again, this time an entire stomach-full, which flew six feet across the room in an astonishing arc that collided with the western wall.
‘Oh,’ I said, holding you as far from me as possible. ‘Oh.’
These were useless words and, I realised, the first I had spoken since Haralia’s visit.
For a moment we remained in that position, me frozen to the bed and you drooling remnant milk as I bore you aloft. Eventually I stood and wiped you down.
Once cleaned, I lay you on the bed, whereupon you began to cry. This was a new sound, more tremulous than any other you had made, and even more jarring. I concluded that you must be in a state of shock after your surprise vomitus. In addition, the milk which you had moments before requested was no longer inside of you, and therefore your hunger had not been satisfied. Your equation was unbalanced.
This was irksome. But no matter. I would simply reintroduce more milk.
But as I reached for the bottle, you soiled yourself. I determined this not just from the noise your anus made—astounding as it was in both length and amplitude—but in the instant, wretched smell that hit my nostrils. I reeled, holding a hand to my nose.
‘Goodness,’ I proclaimed, another useless word heard by nobody but myself.
The sound had surprised you too, and your new cry momentarily ceased as you looked up at the ceiling. Then you started up again, this time with everything you had, and the resulting cry peaked at 123 decibels.
I cupped my ears to protect them. My nose now unprotected, I was reminded of the primary objective, and I hurried to fetch a fresh blanket, but halfway across the room I slipped in the mess of milk you had sprayed upon the floor. My left leg flew upwards and I fell backwards, my skull hitting timber with a thump.
You continued to cry as I lay there, stunned, with my right hand beneath my back. I twitched the muscles in my wrist, noting that I had strained its dorsal radiocarpal ligament. I winced at the pain. Though I knew it would be brief (my body was already repairing the frayed tendon) it was pain nonetheless.
We erta are careful creatures. The last time I had felt pain had been when a bee stung my leg, sixteen years ago.
I pushed myself up and got to my feet, flexing my swiftly-healing hand and inspecting my dress, the rear of which was now stained with milk.
I continued my journey across the room, slower this time, avoiding the smear.
Clear the mess.
Change the blanket.
Restart the feeding process.
Perhaps I had failed to order these priorities correctly.
I found a cloth and wiped the hem of my dress, but the milk had already soaked into its fabric, so I removed it. Now in my undergarments,