In A Jar (Vignette)

“Come in.” Dr. Lisondra said as soon as he heard the knocking on the door. It was a little past midnight. An odd-looking couple walked in. The man, middle-aged, burly, pot-bellied and balding, was dressed rather casually in a plain black t-shirt and jeans. He had a gun tucked away in his belt. I noticed the gun right away because it was silver. And even then in the dimly-illuminated room, it glinted unmistakably.

The girl, I gathered, was barely our of her teens. She wore a white maternity dress that ended just below her knees. The girl clenched the man’s arm tightly as she glanced around the room with unease. “Sit.” barked the man, motioning to a monobloc chair nearby. Dr Lisondra approached him.
“Is she ready?”

The man fished out a pack of Marlboros from his jeans pocket. He mouthed one, lit it, and took a long drag. “She doesn’t have a choice, Doc. I call the shots.”

“Very well,” Dr. Lisondra frowned, shaking his head. “Just let me prepare my instruments.”

My whole life I’ve been accustomed to total darkness, surrounded by shadows and obscurity, five months of swirling around in a liquid void. I never saw the sun; I don’t think I ever will. The first time I saw light, I was almost blinded. That light is the same light in this room now, a faint glow coming from an old, dusty overhead fluorescent lamp.

The girl is crying now, and she is strapped to a bed whose once white sheets are dotted and caked with dried blood. She emits a loud howl not unlike that of a wild animal and not even the burly man almost twice her size could restrain her. He cups a big hand over the girl’s mouth and she bites it, drawing blood. “You useless fuck!” He exclaims in pain, and smashes a fist into the girl’s face. At once there is silence, and I see dark blood trickling from the girl’s nose. “That shut you up.”

Not long ago while swirling around in the warm liquid void I used to call home, I felt a burning sensation envelop me. Suddenly the warm liquid had become too hot, too scalding. It burned my skin, my eyes, my whole body. I screamed. But nobody heard me.

“You know this is a very risky procedure, especially for the mother.” Dr. Lisondra says. “The surgical procedure always is. We can try the chemical one, which is relatively safer. That would involve injecting her womb with a brine solution and then…”

“Just get this over with, Doc.” The man growled. “I need to be at the station early in the morning tomorrow. We opted for the surgical procedure, so we’ll go with the surgical procedure. Don’t worry about her. The bitch is physically fit. She’s a gymnast.” Dr. Lisondra nodded and he put on his surgical gloves.

Even then in the dimly-illuminated room, Dr. Lisondra’s silver instruments glinted unmistakably.

And I shiver inside this jar.

(Originally posted on December 28 2006)