Flash Fiction: Immaculate Conception
© Bach Shin Young
Her name will be Maude. I’m not one for metaphors but I always liked that movie – the one where the nice, old lady finds a beau. I look at the liquid in the dish and pray she finds me well, little Maude.
A woman in a crisp, ivory lab coat slips her fingers in me and tells me that it means “within the glass” in Latin. She offers Latin on a platter with the Petri dish, delivering the words “in vitro” too delicately for the occasion – almost like it was fucking Italian and she was searching for garlic knots in my uterus. Doctors always feel the need to fill the silence when they’re inside of you.
I never found my Harold but I did find ten thousand dollars. Neighbors drape their judgements on me and bring up Darwin like Darwin would give a shit about my baby Maude. People will look at you with disappointment and disgust and talk about ethics like we don’t all know Ron’s rendezvous with the St. Mark’s girls who give blow jobs for twenty dollars. He and his wife tell me it’s a very desperate thing to do and I don't bring up his affair with the crack-whores.
I’ll teach Maude about acceptance, about kindness and men – teach her to find love in her heart for the Ron’s of the world because I see how their heart is as fearful and uncertain as my baby floating in that little dish.
