Chris Adrian: The Children's Hospital

Here I am, Rob said, behind her.

There you are, she agreed, running a finger along his arm.

But not really, he said. They tell me to say, Let me go. They tell me to say, Burn the gruesome effigy. They tell me to say, It is an abuse and an abomination, what you are doing.

It’s so nice, she said, to lie here. She had no idea what he was talking about, but sensed that she didn’t want to know.

I won’t say it, though. What the fuck do they know? None of them have been in love. None of them have the slightest fucking clue. If they ever did, they’ve already forgotten. Look at all the shit that went down, before, and tell me who gives a flying fuck that Jemma kept a picture of me?

I’m supposed to be at OB rounds in a half hour, Jemma said. Do you think they’d notice if I don’t go?

A picture, a doll, an abomination? What’s the fucking difference? Haven’t any of you ever been lonely? Haven’t any of you ever missed somebody? What do any of you know about it, anyway?

Who would notice? All I do is get numbers. Even if they let me anywhere near the delivery, I just get shoved aside at the last minute. Guess how many cervixes I’ve felt in the past two weeks? Exactly one, and that was my own. I complained to the chief and do you know what she said? Can you guess what she said?

No one has ever been in love but us.

Those are premium vaginas, Dr. Claflin. Not for just anybody to stick their arm into. Can you believe it? Maybe if I’m extra-special good, they’ll let me polish one of them, eventually.

No one, not ever. Not in the old world, and never in the new. We are alone, and have always been alone. There’s nobody but us, and has never been anybody else. Stay with me here, forever.

You don’t have to tell me twice, she said, scooting closer into him, and closing her eyes.

Stay with me, he said. Don’t fall asleep.

Of course I won’t, she said, but it was already happening — she was sleepier and sleepier, inside the dream, and just before she went she realized what was happening and tried — no use — to claw her way back.

When she woke up he was dead. She hoped she was still dreaming, and hoped that when she looked over the edge of the bed she’d see dark ocean instead of the blue carpet, but this was her bed, in her room, in her hospital, everything the same as how she’d left it before her nap except for the burden of ash atop the sheets, and the feeling in her belly centered somewhere under the baby — stone, aching loneliness, aching sadness.

She stayed away from their room, after that. It was not home anymore. She never wanted to see the black ashes in their bed again. There was a lot of stuff in there, now, the accumulated gifts of their marriage and the fifteen baby showers that had been thrown on her behalf, but all she took with her was the pencil case and Pickie, loaded out of the tub and into a stroller.

She could have moved in anywhere she wanted, into the luxurious apartments of Drs. Tiller and Snood, or the spartan room where Father Jane had slept on a cot, or Vivian’s space salon, but though these rooms were empty, they all seemed full — too crowded with ghosts to yield any room for her. She was restless, anyway, and couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard she tried. She felt she could not get comfortable except by getting the baby out. She’d toss from one side of a bed to the other, feeling hot and then cold, wiggling her toes in a frenzy, wanting to sleep and sleep, and wake when the whole thing was finally over — she was so sure it would be soon, and yet every time she got out of another bed, it was still that same day. No rest for the wicked, said Dr. Snood, making a scraping, shame-on-you gesture with his two forefingers.

“Fuck off,” Jemma said, the extent of conversation she had with any of them, all the faces that lay over her own when she looked in the mirror or the windows, and the bodies that stepped out of walls, or rose out of the replicator mists. She didn’t know if they were real or not. She was trying her hardest not to imagine them, and yet they kept coming. Up until that day she thought she was just pretending to be crazy, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“Stop following me,” she said to Dr. Tiller, who paced her on the ramp.

We are all still with you, she said. We have not gone anywhere. Like you, we are just waiting.

“Wait someplace else,” Jemma said, feeling defeated when she took off the marvelous do-rag and threw it over the seventh-floor balcony.

It’s all because of you, said Jordan Sasscock. Why didn’t you save us? Why didn’t you try harder?

“Why don’t you try harder to go away?” Jemma asked him, down under the shadow of the toy. He kept talking but she didn’t listen — it was only blame and she didn’t need to hear it — because she was telling herself all the time that she was just pretending to be crazy, that the baby-piling and the random urination was all an act, and even seeing these ghosts was just an act. They were echoes conjured in the air by her supremely powerful imagination. Yes, it was the most powerful imagination in all of history, in all of the universe. Her father had always said it would get her into trouble. “That’s what’s wrong with you,” he told her. “Why would you ever do anything, if you’re happy just to dream about it?”

Try it, then, Jemma: try to hold every one of them in your mind, all the lost lives, the whole imperfect world, like a sick body only wanting a convincing story of health to make it better. It shouldn’t be any harder to change the world than to change one sick child. Equally impossible, they should be equivalent miracles. You give a push, and one thousand ghosts condense in the halls, along the ramp, on the roof. Another push and the children are awake and playing. Another and the sea is full of struggling, dying bodies. Another and you open your eyes, alone in the empty hospital except for Ishmael, looking down at you from the speaker’s platform. He is naked and flushed, his huge penis standing up stiff against the railing, peeking over to stare at you, too.

“Fuck off,” you say, not sure if he is real.

“You did it,” he says. “It was you all along. I’ve been saying it was everybody else, but it was you, who did the worst thing.”

“Fuck off.” You make a sign at him, something you make up on the spot, a twisting motion of your fingers that’s supposed to make him disappear in a puff of smoke.

“How could you do it? How could you think no one would notice? How could you think it would be let to pass? You did that thing, and then you’re surprised when the world has to end on account of it?”

“I bet you say that to everyone.”

“Look!” he says. “Look at what it’s like! Look at what you make me do!” He claws at his eyes, then. You can feel it when he digs them out of the sockets, pulling at the nerve until it stretches and snaps. You sit down heavily, head in your hands, saying the magic words:

“Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!” And it works. When you look up he is gone, not a trace of him on the balcony, no blood, no eyeballs, and when you hear his distinctive shrieking it seems to be coming from very far away.

She stayed in the lobby until well after nightfall, sitting under the toy with her legs crossed and her hands folded over her belly, listening to its crankings and susurrations, following the shiny metal ball as it fell down the many yards of winding chute, and the twirling metal ribbons that celebrated the return every time the ball came back to the high basket. About an hour after dark the ghosts began to come on like lights all up the ramp, and shortly after that they began to wave and call to her.

Come up, they said. Come up. It’s almost time.

“Fuck off,” she said quietly, but they didn’t go away, and eventually she rose unsteadily and started the climb. They were kinder now, not so likely to yell at her or insult her. There you go, said Dr. Sundae, shooing her farther up the ramp as she passed the third floor. Upward and onward, said Dr. Walnut, showing his pointy brown teeth in a warm smile. Almost there, said Dr. Snood on the eighth floor, when she stopped a while, more because there was a sense of finality about being on the roof that she didn’t much like, and she felt they were trying to tell her something, these imaginary creatures, with the friendly cheerleading that had replaced the scolding and the disappointed sighing — they all knew she wasn’t ever going to come down again.