Fun with a corpus

She looked down at the sleeping baby. He looked so peaceful now in his stroller, smashed in among the other pigeons taking their daily cramped commute into the city. He had spent the entire night awake and crying. Normally, he was not a fussy baby, which is why she wanted to go check on him. She did, against her husband’s wishes, and found that the baby had a low-grade temperature. She was still new to being a mother and decided she would take the baby to the doctor in the morning, just to be sure it was nothing serious.

The baby stirred, cooed, and continued to sleep. She placed her hand gently on the baby’s stomach, rubbing it up and down, slowly and lovingly. “I am meant to be a mother, this feels right.” She told herself. She smiled. The baby gurgled. A harsh pinch on her arm violently disrupted her tranquil state of mind. She had almost forgotten her husband sitting next to her. He must have seen her put her hand on the baby. She did not want to stop rubbing the baby’s stomach. The more she touched her child, the stronger she felt. She smiled at her husband apologetically and placed the other hand on his thigh, rubbing it up and down, slowly and lovingly.

Ever since the baby was born, he had made it clear. It was him, or him and the baby. But it was not to be just the baby. She was to be a wife first, a mother second.

They entered the brightly colored pediatrician’s office, littered with blocks and balls and Highlight’s magazines. As a child, she never understood the magazine’s motto, “Fun with a purpose,” because she pronounced “purpose” as “porpoise” in her head, and it was not really a magazine about dolphins. The thought of this caused her to giggle. This made the baby coo. This made the father mad. He grabbed his wife’s hand and led her up to the receptionist’s desk. The woman behind the desk commented on how nice it was to see both mother and father together at their child’s appointment. She was getting sick of hearing this. She imagined a school of dolphins ramming their long noses into her husband, and then tossing his bloody corpse around like a beach ball. She smiled. The baby giggled. The father laughed, a big, loud, booming laugh. He did not want to be left out, though he did not know what they were laughing about.