Quiet Mountain Essays

Copyright © 2009

The Syndrome
by
Alana I. Capria

PASS or Post Abortion Stress Syndrome: thought to be a condition similar to post-traumatic stress disorder or
postpartum depression which afflicts a woman following an abortion. Although it is sometimes stated that PASS is a
result of a woman's shame of having an abortion, it is this writer's belief that PASS is instead a reaction to religious
and social doctrines which declare that abortion is murder...

Afterwards, you are haunted by fetuses. They sit in the windows, spinning webs and catching flies.
“Mother,” they whisper between bites. “Don't you miss us?” There are fetuses in your stomach,
pounding on the walls and reaching up your throat. When you dream, which is not often because
sleep continually eludes you, they are there as well, calling your name while spreading infant legs to
give birth to tiny plastic dolls.

There are times your child comes alone at night. She crawls across the floor, whimpering, and when
you pick her up, you cannot help but recoil. She has no face. You leave her in that shadow land of
unconsciousness; she waves goodbye as you awake.

You were not upset during the surgery. If anything, you were happy. You could start again from the
beginning. You were free. You were proud. It was your decision. On the examining table, you stared
at the ceiling without blinking and only cried slightly when you felt the pinch of the I.V. Even now,
with fetuses clambering over your shoulders and tap dancing on your head, you are relieved.

Still, there are nights when the burden of so many fetuses becomes so much that you collapse,
screaming I'm sick, I'm sick and your husband can only cradle you. You are certain he wants to ask
what are you sick from but perhaps, he would then also have to ask what are you sick of.

It is fall. He takes you pumpkin picking. The fetuses stay home. You are still in recovery, and
although you can walk through corn mazes and rows of apple trees, you are not allowed to pick your
own pumpkin. Your husband will do that for you. You can stroke its sides, pull at the vine leaves
stuck to the top, but that is all. You cannot support its weight.

Your husband takes you on the hayride. While planning the outing, the hayride was the one thing
you wanted to do. But now, standing on one of three lines surrounded by families, you feel empty.
You touch your stomach without realizing it and are immediately shamed by the gesture. He takes
your hand away from your abdomen to hold against his chest. He smiles. You turn to look at the
small twins standing behind you, tugging on their parents' clothing.

Recently, you have begun looking at children and wondering if any of their features are similar to
your own. You would like to have an idea of what your own daughter would have looked like. When
you are alone, you catch your arms raising on their own, positioned for the placement of a child.
Once, you tried to hold a doll that way but the frame was too light, and enraged, you threw the doll
across the room and only laughed when its head snapped off.

You are also afraid of children. The twins you are watching suddenly grow fangs and snarl at you.
You step back too quickly, trip over your husband's foot, and nearly lurch into another couple. Your
husband catches you, holds you steady. “Breathe,” he says, and you want to scream because you
never stopped breathing.

The week before, he took you to a museum you had been interested in visiting. You searched for a
display on fetal development without meaning to and when you found it, you immediately stared at
the skeleton of a fifteen week fetus and sobbed. He pulled you away from the display, whispering
“Don't cry. Please don't cry. It's okay. It isn't her. Please don't make a scene here. People are going to
start looking at you.”

You should have kept crying. You should have beaten your fists against the glass and wailed your
child's name. You should have fought the security guards, kicked the display window in, and
grabbed the skeleton. You should have wrapped your body around it. But you did none of that.
Instead, you let him lead you away to an exhibit on 'Syphilis and the Male Genitalia'.

Now waiting for an available wagon to stop, you think about arrangements of skeletons instead of
ripe pumpkins. You are supposed to be fantasizing about what grotesquely faced fruit you will have
placed on the front steps the next night. Will it have the twins' fangs or a ghost's face? Or will it
instead have only a circle where the face should have been, a jack o' lantern horrible in its ambiguity?

He helps you up the platform into the hay wagon. The hay smells sweet from being cooked in
sunshine all day. Flies hover around the mounds of dung in the grass. You turn to him, lean your
head against his shoulder, and swallow several times, trying to clear the sick taste in your mouth.

He kisses you.

The hayride takes you to a corn maze. You want to get lost. You move through the path slowly,
reading each posted question three times and wondering over any missed answers. He urges you
forward. It will be dangerous in the maze after dark. There are too many trenches and breaks in the
dirt to not fall over or into at least one. He is afraid that if you fall, you will bleed.

You touch corn husks, pull the leaves free, push your face between the stalks, listen to the distant
shrieks of those exiting, the hesitant rustling of those entering. Looking too closely at one stripped ear,
you see a small fetus smiling back, licking a kernel. “I think it's time you went away,” you whisper,
and it swallows the corn whole before sinking back into the leaves.

Tonight, you will ask your husband to help clean the cobwebs from the windows and walls.

Contributor's Notes...

23-year-old Alana I. Capria is pro-choice and pro-thought.  She has a BA in English/Creative Writing from
Montclair State University and is a MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program at Fairleigh Dickinson
University.  She resides in New Jersey with her fiance, Eddie, and their rabbit, Andromeda Danae.  Ms. Capria
has also been published by No Record Press.

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