I hate the way he breathes, the heavy nasal wheezing keeping me up through the night. And I hate the way he smells. But most of all, I hate the way he eats.
People tell me that over time I'll get used to it. "He's only been alive for three years. Give him time. Give yourself time," they say. But I know the truth. I know the little fucker's been waiting inside me my entire life. I could feel him just under the surface, waiting to scratch his way towards the light.
People don't ask me who the father is any more. They know what I'm going to tell them, what the doctors confirmed for me several times over. There is no father. And when people hear his muffled cries during the day, they look the other way.
I'd let him starve if I could, but every time it gets hungry it claws at my now sagging breasts. There's nothing there for it. I'm not lactating because this isn't a child. As I reach down to spoon another small heap of gruel into the gaping, toothless maw protruding from my waist that somehow uses a part of my stomach for its lungs, that somehow belches and screams in flatulent utterances, I realize what my body knows: that this malformed tumor growing out of my body is somehow me, has always been a part of me, and never had any intention of leaving. And if it dies, I die with it.
"Immaculate Conception"
Copyright: © 2011 Kirk Jones
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Kirk Jones is the author of Uncle Sam's Carnival of Copulating Inanimals, published by the New Bizarro Author Series, an imprint of Eraserhead Press. He reviews classic works that could, in retrospect, be considered bizarro on Retro Bizarro at www.bizarrojones.com. Forthcoming work will soon be published in Unicorn Knife Fight.
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