PodCastle 783: Of the Body

* Author : Eugenia Triantafyllou

* Narrator : C. L. Clark

* Host : Matt Dovey

* Audio Producer : Eric Valdes

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Previously published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Content Warnings for animal death and themes of infant death

Rated PG-13

Of the Body

By Eugenia Triantafyllou

When Osarah and I finally lie sweaty in our bed that night, I know that when the three moons align we will have a baby.

Osarah looks back at me. Smiling. The wetness of her face is lined by the cold light of the moon shining outside our window.

She can feel it too. She knows it like I know it.

“What shall we name it?” she asks. She takes my hand and gently kisses my knuckles one by one.

“I don’t know yet,” I lie. I hope she can’t feel my lie like she feels our child coming into existence.

I have thought of a thousand different names for our future children. Ever since our eyes first met. But right now, right at this moment when I should be the most happy, I am terrified.

Terrified of the moment when Osarah and I will hunt down the animal that bears our child and kill it. Will my aim be good enough to wound it without hurting our child? Will my hands shake as I cut its belly open and pry the baby out of its innards, slick with blood?

Osarah wraps her arms around me, sensing my fear. Her heat becomes my heat. Her cheek presses against my shoulder.

“It’ll be all right,” she assures me. “I’ll be there too.” Huddled like this, we let our minds travel to the valley, to a herd of sharpsnoots. Inside the belly of a special one, that’s grazing on the tender night leaves.

Ah, there! We both think. That’s the one. That’s our baby.

Now, we wait.

I am the child of a sharpsnoot too. No, not her child. She was not my mother. Only the vessel from which my parents gave birth to me. We all come from a vessel, and it’s not always the same species of animal. But our parents are always humans, and so are we.

We belong to our parents.

It is a delicate balance, but one that can’t be avoided. We are all interconnected. Our pregnancies and birthing run through the entire animal world. We call it the Body. The collective body of nature. I have heard of children born of trees, but I’ve never met one.

We hunt to survive and to bring our children to life, but no more than necessary. We keep some plants for grain and fruit but not animals. The children might become confused and mistake them for the vessels that bore them. Might call them mothers.

They are not their mothers.

I touch the scar high up on my thigh, where my leg meets the gentle curve of my hip. My father’s knife gave me this scar after he missed with his arrows.

I survived. But many of us don’t.

The nightstrider is already dead when Nipe slices its belly and pries her daughter out. Its jaw hangs open, its eyes glassy and bloodshot.

“Watch me now, Sali,” Nipe tells me. Her face is speckled with rain and with blood from poking into the nightstrider’s insides. “You don’t want to kill your baby when it’s time.”

I shiver and lean in closer, obediently. My hand is resting on my own belly. Even though it is empty of child, I can feel my baby growing. The feeling is inside of me but also not. Still, it is as strong as if the baby were squirming inside my body. Somewhere back in our house, Osarah is feeling the same.