on tv

Last night I watched a medical show about a woman who was pregnant for 46 years. The baby had died and turned to stone inside her, calcified in a shell, entombed, they kept saying. I was sorry when they chose to take it from her, after her body had cradled it for so long. It seemed that the two should remain forever entwined, become entombed together. But there it was, the baby she had denied, willed herself to forget, halved on an examining table, a secret beached for the world to see.

The woman said she felt a great weight had been lifted, that now, at 75, she could move on. Unnatural science brought to bear on grotesque nature, restoring the Right, the Normal, and easing her physical pain. The doctors spoke with excitement, the woman with resignation and relief.