THE TELL-TALE UTERUS
TRUE!ânervousâvery, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am hysterical? My hormones had sharpened my sensesânot destroyedânot dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in the lower part of my own torso. How, then, am I hysterical? Hearken! and observe how healthilyâhow rationally I can tell you the whole story.
It was not long I had sat up google-ing fertility statistics when I first encountered it. We had always lived in the same body, the uterus and I, sharing polite nods once a month. I do not know when the strange notion first came upon me, but I was suddenly seized by the desire to cease those monthly visits. Since the uterus gave no sign of stopping, it was up to me to take action. I was in my twenties then, and my life seemed an infinite thread, the world no worse for missed menstruation.
I went about it methodically and scientifically, gathering what I needed for the event itself. First, I visited a doctor in a medical building next to a freeway. Unlike the officious sterility of most medical offices, the OBGYN welcomed me warmly. After a quick exam and chat about my medical history, I presented my strange request, expecting the doctor to recoil in horror. Instead, she explained the procedure was quite routine. She seemed almost cheerful when she recommended a copper device to shut down the operation. Both heartened and appalled by her eager compliance, I departed with a plan in place.
I returned for the insertion the following week, the outpatient procedure taking but a sliver of my morning. Afterwards, an acute pain and some blood, but as the metal took ahold of my progesterone I found myself oddly detachedâgleeful, even. Soon, the monthly reminders of my uterus slowed, and eventually stopped completely. It was as if it wasnât even there. I felt no remorseâit had been shut down, deep inside my bodyâburied within my own flesh and blood. An entombed womb.Â
As the hormones took their due course, and I doubled down on my investment in my career. Without the constant tick I found myself more productive than ever. I was promoted to head office. I had duped nature itself, and my uterus was relegated to the dusty attic of my memory, keeping company with my gallbladder and spleen.
It was some after these events that the invitation arrived in the mail. Opening the envelope, I expected the usual save-the-date but this one was differentâa stork had replaced the familiar doves. I was barelyâbarely able to read the words over a garish clip-art infant. Deep within my torso I heard a soft, faint tickâlike a turn signal, lingering.Â
In the weeks leading up to the shower, small tokens entered into my consciousness which triggered the soundâstrollers whipping past me on the sidewalk, targeted ads adorning my beloved web pages, suggestive calls from my mother. The day of the party came and wentâI spent it locked in my room, kept company by the tick which had now become as loud as the clock on my wall.
It increased in volume every night and upon waking its unceasing noise reversed every stride I had made at my place of business. I became both exhausted and, envying the joyful oblivion of the men that surrounded me, unaffected by my ticking.Â
At last I could take it no longerâone morning, at daybreak, I ran back to the doctor, begging her to take out the wretched device. She calmly complied. I wept tears of relief, and went home eager to for my first night of blessed uninterrupted sleep.Â
I settled quickly with an imperfect match, conceived with no more than the usual difficulty, and gave birth to a infant, much more lively than the clipart version that had begun my panicked machinations. As soon as my partner and I settled in at home with our new addition, the babe began to cry. And somewhere, below or above the screams of its small lungs, it began again. I turned to my partner, asked if he could hear the noise, but he laughed pleasantly, suggesting that perhaps the birth had split my brain as well as my body.Â
But there it wasâa small, slow, and steady tick in the heart of my reproductive organs. And in that tick I heard the unending cacophony of existence, the dark fear that in choosing one path the other was forever closed, making its unfulfilled presence known through constant, small reminders. But I could not sit and think, for the babe was crying and needed to be fed and the laundry was in a pile and needed to be washed and the floor was dirty and needed to be swept and the--
