Labour of Love
Ring-a-ring-a-rosies
A pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down
My mother always said, “Love hurts”. I never really knew what that meant until I met you. Until I listened to your little heartbeat, and had you kick so hard I felt it in my chest. I don’t mind the scars you’ll leave on my swollen stomach, or the aches in my lower back. My baby girl, you’re all I’ll ever need. And when you’re born, I’ll have something to die for.
...
I pass cans of tomato soup and cola bottles placed in perfect rows like a Warhol print. This department store is always crowded with customers, all frantic and fleeting, who come to buy their material dreams. Please come again. This is the beating heart of our beautiful country, a landmark of our American ambition, and we can’t get enough.
I push my shopping cart on a gleaming linoleum floor, through over-air-conditioned air, down a serpentine path of never-ending aisles stocked with never-ending stuff. Fluorescent lights shine down like spotlights. Radio plays on overhead speakers like a quiet soundtrack. Brilliantly couloured sale stickers make rainbows in my peripherals. New low prices. It’s everything you could need and all so sweetly cheap. Candies and computers, carcasses and carpets, cribs and canes, cradle to grave. God knows I’ll live and die in this pretty little paradise.
There’s a new shipment coming in. A kid is stacking boxes of bright white diapers, one atop the other, in a meticulous polyhedral display. Though with all the new babies, they’ll all be gone by afternoon, and the kid will have to start again. I quickly grab a pack for myself.
I unfurl a list of items to find to get the world ready for my baby girl. A bottle of bleach to clean up the messes, a sponge for getting the stains out, a bib to catch what splatters, a stroller for easy transport, and a glimmering twelve inch steel blade to chop things into smaller pieces. One stop shop. Hope to see you soon. I load everything into the stroller, venture into the warm spring air, and head towards my mother’s house to finish preparing for my daughter’s birth.
Outside, the streets are flooded. Pedestrians move in steady waves, washing over intersections. Cars inch forward in impatient gridlock. A chorus of horns. Masses of mothers carry babies and small children down sidewalks. A choir of cries. Crowds repeatedly crash into each other. Swarms of sweaty-limbed people make for tepid and humid air. There are too many people in this world. I push through the chaos.
Towering above is a mosaic of billboards that make catchy promises. I hum their slogans to my unborn baby girl like a nursery rhyme. After all, jingles are merely lullabies that lure us towards a blissful slumber and the American dream. And what a beautiful place that is to be.
Streetlights sparkle like little suns over a turbulent mob. Gorgeous glowing stores stand on dirty streets not far from a landfill. And the smell is unmistakable.
I gag long before the incinerators are in sight, the stench of burning and rot hanging in the heat. It intermingles with the smell of frying meat. Black smoke slithers through the sky, leaving trails of falling ashes that choke the surrounding air. Piles of trash climb to the clouds. Decaying debris, rotting rejects, garbage caked with grease. Littered with vermin and enough flies to make it look like night. This is where old things go to die.
And I don’t dislike it. Disintegrate the decomposing heaps that accrete. Evaporate the expendable. Rise as smoke to the heavens because where else would they go? There’s only so much space, only space for our prettiest things. The cost of cheap is worth it. Because there's always an upgrade, a shinier, newborn innovation. And I like new things.
People stand with black trash bags in snaking lines that grow like vines down curving streets. I remember standing in a line just like this one a few years ago when I cleared out my father’s apartment. He died of old age the day your late brother was born. I remember for a moment, everything was so quiet. So still. The light behind his eyes went out like birthday candles. I held my newborn child in one arm, and my dying father’s head in the other. I could see the fear in his eyes. He didn’t want to die. I watched his slowing breath rise and fall until he exhaled for the last time. His pale figure almost looked peaceful. Then his body was slid into a black body bag, taken out of the apartment. And he was gone.
And then your brother. He was such a beautiful baby. His head too big for his body, tiny feet, and chunky little legs. Bright, smiling, youthful and full of life. And then he wasn’t. He died a few years after my father. A mother’s hardest burden is knowing when to let her children go. Spread your wings and fly away. He had his head to the floor like he was praying. Cracked skull halo. When he was born, I never thought it would happen that way. He’d been such a beautiful baby, but grew into such a frail boy. I promise there’s nothing I could have done differently. I swear I’m not to blame! I held my struggling boy in my arms and sang him to sleep. And that day, lullabies and eulogies sounded the same.
The king has sent his daughter
To fetch a pail of water
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down
I swear it wasn’t my fault. I swear I’m a good mother! What was I supposed to do? He died, but that’s part of the cycle of life. I promise he barely cried. My daughter kicks like this upsets her. I hug my belly. My baby, don’t worry. You’ll never end up like your brother. Besides, I always wanted a girl.
I turn the corner onto my mother’s street and begin preparing for what comes next. I snap the bib onto my neck, take the knife in hand, and compose myself to expedite a god-given rhythm. My baby girl, I love you more than life. I would do anything for you. Out with the old, in with the new. This is how I make space for you. Hush, don’t you worry, baby. You see, people, really, are just a commodity. We’re brand new, and then all of a sudden aged, and die to make room for the latest model. Only death can counterbalance our production. Replacement is a natural cycle, and you are the new beginning. The beaming, young, golden child. My baby girl, you are my everything, and this is my labour of love.
I arrive at the entrance. The property is dying of old age just like my mother. A falling white picket fence, overgrown grass, a crumbling house, an old stone path. A dying garden surrounds the house, but wilting posies don’t ward off destiny. I’ll bring this cycle full circle.
I pound on the door. Clench my fists, fingernails drawing blood from my palm, a single bead of sweat adorning my forehead. I feel dressed for the occasion. I knock harder. I’ve never liked doing chores, but I was taught to roll up my sleeves and do them anyway. My mother finally opens the door, and she's already a ghost. Her skin a peeling coat over shattered glass bones. I greet her with a shining smile as fear creeps across her face. I wonder if she loved me like I love my baby girl. My mother always said love hurts.
I back her into the house, corner her in the kitchen. The shimmering knife reflects light onto her shaking frame. And it’s all so easy. My baby girl, it’s all so picturesque. I close the space between us, reach towards her like I’m Adam and this is a Michelangelo painting. She’s going to give me life. And when the stars align like the American flag, I slide the knife across her neck. She breathes out. She bleeds out. Her blood betrays her. Falls to the ground and bears a crimson crown. One final slash. It’s done in a flash. I sing a lullaby to calm my baby as I stand over my mother’s dead body.
The wedding bells are ringing
The boys and girls are singing
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down
I sit in the aftermath, and clean up the mess, scrunching my nose and using dots of bleach to wipe away the last specks of red. Feeling a deep sense of satisfaction at the spotless floor, I remove the soiled bib, kill the lights, and gather everything into the black bag to be loaded into the stroller. All done. I take out the trash.
I drag it behind me, and it’s so heavy it skids across the concrete street as I head back to the landfill. The scraping sounds like a broken record. The sun is setting. I walk into the future towards the sky’s multicoloured symphony. So wide. So expansive. And I feel like anything is possible. My baby girl, you’ll love it. There’s finally room for the both of us. It’s all yours. The soil, the sea, the sky and its stars. You’re the light of my life. All mine. And I’d do anything for you.
I haul my heavy load down several more city blocks, staining the sidewalk with streaks of red, decorating the streets with crimson chalk art. I exhale a sigh of relief as I reach the road’s end and arrive at the incinerator.
A celebration of life unfolds at the landfill. Thousands of glowing pregnant women and new mothers assemble in a congregation. White teeth gleaming. The crowd pregnant with excitement and anticipation. They hold black trash bags, and wait their turn to throw their junk away. A bell reverberates through the air and another woman dumps waste into the incinerator. The wedding bells are ringing. And the whole crowd cheers.
Children as pretty and pristine as plastic flowers hold hands in a circle around the landfill. They lie down and turn freshly fallen ashes to snow angels. Cloud-gaze at the smoke. Throw old bones over the hill like hopscotch stones. They climb over piles of trash like a playground. The pregnant women hold their round stomachs grinning. And brand new babies cry all around. The boys and girls are singing.
Soon, my mother will join my father and son. Rise like smoke to the heavens because where else would they go? There’s not enough space. My son replaced my father, my baby girl, my mother, and to tell you the truth, I just got bored of my son and wanted a daughter. They were all disappointingly outdated anyways. I did them a favour! Put them out of their monotonous misery. I made their aging ailing bodies angels. Traded rot for radiance, garbage for gold, I gave their expired souls salvation. These days, killing and creating are one in the same. We found a way to preserve our production. The solution to our modern Malthusian prophecy. Sacrificial lambs for this American dream.
And it’s time. The bell rings through the sky. I stand first in line. Toss the trash as far as I can into the raging fire. It grows as mightily as a conflagration reaching out to the shimmering stars. And isn’t it wonderful! Her body burns in a brilliant blaze and I smile. Ashes ashes. The flames illuminate our glorious future. My baby girl, it’s here. All shiny and new. And you are worth everything.
...
I stand in the kitchen, under a flickering light bulb, and clean up after my daughter’s two year old birthday party. She makes such a mess. A toddler in her terrible, terrible twos. Just a little younger than her late brother. The house is always crowded with her clutter. More trinkets than I can count. An army of stuffed animals, a mob of miniatures, a flock of figurines, and everything in between. My daughter cries from the next room over. I walk towards her, but a teddy bear snags my toe, I trip over toys, and crash to the floor. A little bit of blood drips from my arm and dirties the ground. My daughter looks up at me, smiling, and says, Mommy, it’s okay, and sings the last line of the lullaby I taught her. We all fall down.
–Fabienne de Cartier