Short Story: “The Nothingness”

Disclaimer: The story below is purely a piece of creative writing. It is not written based on my personal experience, nor have I known anyone who has experienced it. I do not understand the pain that anyone who has undergone, or who is undergoing it, has felt; nor do I presume to do so. I am truly sorry if this has brought up any painful memories for the reader.

Her feet quietly kicked off her blanket, and in the darkness, her toes seek the bedroom floor. They made contact with the cool surface and gingerly the rest of her feet eased onto it. She got to her feet and they carried her forward towards the door; it was as if they were on autopilot mode, mechanically scuffling along to take her to the place she had been gravitating towards the past few days.

Her eyes blink away the darkness of the room, adjusting to brightness of the lit hallway. They flit over to the bed she’d just left, and the figure of a man on it, tiredly snoozing away.  But her eyes quickly snap back to the hallway.

Her hand slowly drew the door to a close. It slid silently from the doorknob, and rest unconsciously on her tummy. Her stomach gave a lurch as her heart sank: her tummy never felt so empty before. Her hand then dropped and rested at her side.

Her feet continued to glide towards the room that has been her source of hope and disappointment for such a long time. They come to a stop right before the beige door and her hands instead carried the forward momentum from her legs, reaching out towards the golden doorknob and turning it gently. Working as though in a tag team, her hand retreated back to her sides and her legs took over. They surged forwards, carrying her to a pastel yellow crib standing alone in the corner of a room.

Her eyes picked out all the little things that she and her husband had placed in the room over the past four months. Saw the stuffed toy bears strewn across the room. The boxes of diapers and baby clothes that were left unpacked. The mobile hanging above the crib, softly going round and round over the head of a baby that never made it to the crib. Her eyes pushed back the tears that were threatening to fall.

Her feet stopped right in front of the crib. Her hand reached down to the contents inside the crib, fingering the soft quilt that it has spent countless nights knitting for the baby that would have come. Her fingers graze the pillow on which the baby’s soft head would have been placed.

It’s strange. How her body could function so perfectly, so harmoniously together. How her individual body parts are alive, knitting together the different senses to create a coherent picture for her. When her baby's could not. Was not given the chance to do so.

But now her body fails her. Her hand falls limp, her feet crumple beneath her, and her eyes no longer had the willpower to combat the onslaught of tears that slid down her face fast and furiously. She lays down on the cold wooden floor, curling into a fetal position, as if to make amends for the absence of one who was supposed to do the same in this very room.

She closes her eyes, and lets her hands and feet lie where they are. She embraces the stillness and darkness, and wonders if this nothingness is what her baby is feeling.