Glorious Frazzled Beings by Angélique Lalonde

Author:Angélique Lalonde [Angélique Lalonde]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2021-08-25T14:28:16+00:00

The Pregnancy Test

Gloria takes a pregnancy test in the Skeena Mall then stuffs the package into the tampon bin leaving half the box sticking out. Five women use the stall after her and before Layla starts her evening cleaning shift and dumps the bin into the rolling wastebasket she takes to the dumpster out back.

Layla pulls the box out with her blue latex gloves because the bin is overflowing and she can’t pull the bag out without spilling the contents unless she takes the box out first. She shakes the box and finds it empty, peers into the bin to see if it’s been dropped inside, but the wand is nowhere to be found. Layla wonders what happened to the magic stick and hopes to hell whoever took the test didn’t flush it because that will be a romping mess to clean later when the toilet gets plugged up.

Of the five women who use the stall after Gloria, all but one are tempted to pull the wand out of the box and see the results, but only Meeru and Iris do. Iris hesitates, because of the ickiness factor, but she’s been waiting to see a positive on one of these sticks for three years now so she can’t stop the compulsion to look, thinking maybe, just maybe this is the omen she’s been waiting for. If this one shows a plus sign, maybe her next one will too?

Tanis looks at the box for a long time and wonders about the girl who took it. She tries to piece together the girl’s story. Tanis assumes that it was a girl because a woman would most likely take the thing home, not have to hide in a dingy stall in the mall. Unless it was a woman who was hoping and really wanted to know and couldn’t wait? But wouldn’t a woman like that put the box somewhere less visible? Wouldn’t she take it out to the big wastebasket instead of jamming into the tampon bin and creating an inconvenience to all the other women with sanitary pads and tampon applicators who would use the toilet after her? Tanis assumes that only a girl could be so hasty, a girl in some kind of trouble. Poor girl, she thinks. I hope it was a minus sign.

Tanis pretends she isn’t tempted to actually check the applicator, but she is. Like Iris, the thought of a stranger’s secretions is a barrier to her curiosity. Unlike Iris she is not hoping for a plus sign. It would be an absurdist nightmare, singularly impossible outside of immaculate conception for Tanis to ever see a plus sign, since she went through menopause over two decades ago and hasn’t had sex with a man in over forty years. And thank God for that! Tanis can satiate her curiosity by other means.

She sits on the toilet remembering the last member to slime its way inside her, like a blind mole pushing and poking its way underground. Thank God.

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