Fireflood by Vonda N. McIntyre

Author:Vonda N. McIntyre [McIntyre, Vonda N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Only at Night

At night, when I’m here, all the babies lie quiet with their eyes closed. The ones that have eyes.

At night, covered with sheets against the whisper of air in the wards, the children begin to look almost human. I walk between the cribs of deserted newborns and the railed beds of the older ones, sometimes trying not to burst into tears. I touch them, gently, trying to soothe them. Most of them aren’t capable of being soothed. They’re all waiting to die. Sometimes one awakens and lies there helpless and immobile, staring up. They never cry. I hold them and wonder if they think the dull pinpoints of light on the ceiling are stars.

Tonight most of the children are awake. It might be the heat, which is too much for the air conditioning. I do what I can, touch them, change diapers (I am reprimanded if I use too many), offer water. I wish I weren’t here. It’s too quiet and the air is too heavy and no one’s here to talk to. On other wards someone will awaken and need the reassurance of companionship to go back to sleep. Or I’ll whisper a story to a child and he’ll correct me if I change a line until we both begin to giggle, try to stop, and just laugh harder. But these children don’t need bedtime stories. A record of gibberish would do as well. They don’t need me. Maybe if they had always had love they would be able to want it and accept it now, but all they need is food and cleaning and a place out of the rain. To them I’m an automaton, wound up and set to take care of them.

I wish I weren’t here at night, but the others have been here longer and choose to come during the day. While drab sunlight seeps in they put the children on the floor to drag themselves around with stumps of limbs, like mindless invertebrates making their first foray onto the land.

I pick a child up, gently, because her skull has never grown together. There is a soft depression at the top of her head, like skin on cooled soup. I sing, more for myself than her. She is deaf.

She is watching me. My voice trails off and she blinks as if disappointed that I’ve stopped. Do all babies have blue eyes? I know I’m putting my own thoughts and sadnesses and fears into her gaze. She does not think; she can’t. None of them can. But there’s something behind her eyes that’s more than complacent blankness. I put her back in her crib and move on.

I wonder if all their parents have forgotten them. They must have. They hardly ever come … If I believed that I’d be a fool. Their parents remember them too well, every instant of every day, and that’s why they don’t come. They’ve spawned monsters that they’re afraid to try to love. They’re perfect people who hide their mistakes.

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