lucyoncolorado

In which I mustn't interfere with the horrors of nature...


There's a discarded porcelain basin sitting among tall grass in an abandoned lot, frequently used for dumping, near my house. From afar, I can see that it's heavy with a deep sink and a large ribbed area for drying dishes. I move closer to inspect if it's cracked. And I see a bundle wrapped in a blanket.

I pull on the edge of a blanket and reveal an infant inside, dead, with a dog leash wrapped around its neck. I untie the leash, toss it aside and pick up the body.

Back in my own house, I show it to my mother. She already knows about it, she explained, and if I don't want to get wrapped up in this, I best return the body to where I found it and replace the leash in exactly the same way.

I return to the empty lot, walk over to the basin again, only this time the leash is now wrapped around the neck of a second swaddled infant. This time the baby is still alive, but struggling, gasping for air.

I know that I'm not supposed to intervene. I'm like a nature photographer, filming a hyena eating a struggling gazelle. This is just how things are. I shouldn't have come here in the first place. I shouldn't have interfered. I need to put things back exactly as they were.

I set the struggling baby aside in the grass. I replace the dead one in the basin where I found it. Only I realize that the leash is now on the struggling baby's neck. I reach into my pocket and pull out one of Lucy's leashes and I wrap it around the dead baby's neck.

I walk away, leaving both of them in the field.

When I get home, I tell my mother what I've done. She says I'm a fool for using Lucy's leash- now it can be traced back to me. The authorities will think that I strangled the dead baby. I realize she is correct.

I return to the field a third time. I remove Lucy's leash from the neck of the dead baby in the basin neck. I remove the first leash from the neck of the struggling baby in the grass. Now relieved, the baby starts to cry. I replace the first leash around the neck of the dead baby, wrapping it tight. Then I wrap the body back up in the blanket and place its in the basin.

Then I turn to look at the struggling baby, crying and gasping in the grass. I turn around and start to walk back home, leaving the baby there. The baby will die, probably in the night, and that will be it.

All I can think of is what each moment must feel like. The baby is cold. The baby is suffering, second by second, gasping for air, hungry. I think of the gazelle, feeling the hyena rip its flesh.

I go back to the field a fourth time. The infant is now a few months old. I see it's a little girl. I pick her up, and she stops crying. I can see the marks on her neck from the leash that strangled her, but she appears fine. She has curly strawberry hair. I take her home.

I wonder if she'll be brain damaged. I give her a glass of milk and string cheese. She smiles. I feel immensely guilty, horrified with myself. How could I have left her there in the first place?

I'm suddenly incredibly stressed by this question. How did I leave a struggling infant alone in a field? I try to think of the logic behind it. There was some reason. I can't think of what it is. I'm suddenly terrified. How will I explain this to anyone? What will I do with this child? Could I really be such a terrible person as to go home and leave her there alone to die?

The anxiety wakes me up.