Murine diaries

It was day 8 after Peter and I had made love. It was the right time and I knew we would make it. I was bubbling with happiness and excitement when I realised that I was expectant. It gave me an inexplicable sense of pleasure to see myself bloat up and count my days nearing motherhood. Suzie, my roomy was gravid too. She looked a little more blown up than me in spite of both of us getting knocked up on the same day. However, sharing a synchronised venture of gestation with your own roommate is one of the best things that can happen to you. From day one, Suzie and I were preoccupied with baby talks...brainstorming on hoarding the blue and pink stuff for the newcomers, suggesting each other names. I knew I would be mothering quadruplets, But Suzie? She felt a whole football team growing inside her!! Audacious woman I must say!! The two of us made sure we ate in time the Kellogg's Honey loops falling from the skies, worked out our prenatal exercises and slept adequately.

The eighth day, our little white hut was relocated from the barn to a weird place. I could feel my babies getting jittery inside. Over there, giant beings eclipsed the sun over the grilled ceiling of our hut. I was already beginning to abhor the new ambiance. Suzie was furious. She squeaked at the top of her voice, but these giant fellows... I guess they are all deaf and that those huge flabby out-hangings off their face, is just for decoration. Suzie got exhausted screaming. I pacified her and asked her to concentrate on her diet for the sake of her babies. We fed on the husked rice heaped inside our hut. In sometime, a giant reappeared. Like a phantom in a nightmare, he ripped off the grilled ceiling, horrendously descended his hands inside and scooped Suzie out of the hut. Suzie cried for help, “Lucy!!! Save me!” I was impuissantly running along all over the place. They took away Suzie...The giants took her away. I was stuck with horror and solitude. The other day, a fortnight back, they had relocated Marcy the same way they did us. And what they did to her, I had heard, was abominable. And since then, we never heard from Marcy again. She was beautiful and enceinte like us. We girls had a bet that her daughters (if she would ever have) would be an absolute charm with Joe’s eyes and her hair. But she never returned. Neither did her babies.

I was broken from within. I could feel the little hearts of my babies within me, beating every second, pleading for life. I was still in the hut, wherein I cornered myself, awaiting my baleful destiny. The giants came, the giants left. Every time they came, I held my breath back to step into my disastrous fate. What else could I do? I was puny and they were DEAF. My babies... I felt them shaping up inside me, clinging on to me tight to stay alive every moment when I can feed them with my blood, But the very next thought paralysed my mind that I wouldn’t be able to see them breath, feed them, nurture them....just give them a life. There I was, paying a heavy price of my existence, of what I am to the giants, of my life as a LAB RAT.

Within an hour, the giant was back like a ghostly apparition. Non-rebelliously, I surrendered to his claws of doom. They took me to a tiny chamber and locked me inside. Instantly, obnoxious fumes gushed into every inch of my body. I could hear my babies groan in pain. For them, I made my ultimate attempt to escape out, but the giants were just too strong for me. And then, I was.... my eyes...closed....my babies...it was..all....Ov..e...r