Free Apart From Love by Uvi Poznansky

those over there, beyond the threshold, out in a corridor—all of these things ain’t solid no more. In a blink, they’ve lost their bright, yellow sides as well as their opposite, dark sides.  
There ain’t no contrasts anymore, so that now, you can’t define no objects as, say, a four poster bed, or a coat hanger in a corner, or a wooden headboard, part of which is reflected there, in that mirror.  
And instead, the whole space has become kinda fluid, like a gray, smoky swamp, given to the wild storm in my head, in which a shard here, a shard there start floating, in a total muddle.  
And I ain’t even sure if them shards are, like, in the shape of things that have already taken place, or the shape of things yet to come—but somehow I know that from now on, no matter what happens, I ain’t alone: There’s new life in me.  
I touch myself under the blanket, brushing my fingers real slow, from the navel up to the crease right here, under my chest, which is where I can feel the change: My breasts, they’ve grown so much firmer than before, and my nipples, they’ve gotten so much larger, like a drop turning into a ripple.  
I let my hand hover over the place where I imagine my baby, and picture in my head how them things, them passageways start to form, connecting like, by magic, from here to there, forging little nerves in all the right places inside this tiny creature, all quarter inch of him.  
The two of us feel this bond, this warmth right here, coming across the thin gap between the skin of my belly and the skin of the palm of my hand. And so, we’re happy. And then, then I stop to breathe—I gasp—I breathe deeper, deeper, so I can take it, take the pain.  

Which in a flash, brings back to me that which I want to forget. It’s the memory of that clinic, where they took care of the situation , and of how I came to, in that horrible place, and found myself lying there, flat on my back, feeling wounded.  
Immobile, I stared for a long while at some blurry sort of a border, which gave a cold, metallic shine, not getting at first that it came from the rail, the side rail of the bed, which was raised, like, well above the level of my head.  
So even without thinking—or knowing where I was—I felt like an animal, trapped.
Trying to come out of this state of paralysis, I started to notice a slight noise, ‘cause them coil springs, they was creaking under me, which sounded almost like a sigh. There was mist in my head, and I tried to clear it, tried to focus.  
The bed was awful high, so even if I could somehow gather my strength and take hold of the rail, even if I could lower the thing and then, swing my legs right there, over the edge—still, I wasn’t sure if my feet could reach down, all the way to the floor.  
All the while, there was a sound, a sharp sound breaking through to me. Someone out there, someone I couldn’t even see was screaming, screaming real wild, like a kid scared out of her wits, crying for help with no clear words, and without ever stopping.  
The ceiling loomed over my head, and the floor was white and shiny, and a smell rose from it, a pungent smell of some cleaning detergent. Me, I looked around me, and now I could see that the room had several other hospital beds, all of which seemed as shaky, and as high as the one in which I was trapped, on account of being set, somehow, on wheels.  
I could make out some outlines, white outlines of bodies on white sheets. A few stretched flat on their backs; others, like, curled in the shape of a question mark.  
Them women, I gathered, they was just like me: having a situation, and letting someone take care of it for them, and trying to forget, and heal from that which, as ma said, had to be done.  
All of them seemed to be caged, much like me. Their faces was washed out, their expressions—numb. They was just knocked, like, out of their senses.  
Looking at them I became kinda curious. I asked myself, who was the one