Art's Conduct

Art's Conduct: The Infrastructure of Contempt =1=

She immediately sucked in a breath, nearly choking herself, before releasing it in a ragged huff.

"No! No!" he exclaimed in a rush, while his co-workers settled around him. They were a bit frazzled, but there nonetheless. "Don't do that. For now, just listen to me please, ma'am."

She nodded her head vigorously as her eyebrows scrunched together and sweat trickled the sides of her face. Unable to hold it longer, she let out an ear-splitting scream - one that could have awoken the dead any day.

This was too much, she thought.

Past her opaque vision, she could faintly trace the figures in the room. The only way to set them apart were their voices, but even her hearing didn't serve well, and it didn't help that everyone was talking simultaneously at once. Evidently, confusion eventually pressed down on her.

It wasn't until the room grew a rather ominous silence that she was able to regain the last bits of apprehension. Bits and pieces of the situation began to fall back into righteous order, but no matter how hard she convinced herself, she succeeded nothing less than she had from the start.

Weren't they going to start on her operation soon?

For a few seconds, she lay in excruciating distress, waiting for the so-called professionals to get on with it. She thought they had left her when the silence stretched onwards, but when the former doctor's voice piped up, she knew they hadn't left, though her idle relief was prompt.

A child was itching to slide out of her body.

"As I said before I was momentarily sidetracked," the doctor said in such a languid voice that if she were conscious enough to do so, she would have strangled him by the neck already. "take in deep breaths and let it-"

"Just get on with it!" Laura screamed, perturbed over the fact that he had yet to start the operation. "I know how to do this. I've read the books informing me about labor!"

The doctor nodded his head frantically before the nurse proceeded with the famous, "Push!"

Scrunching her face together, she gasped and bent forward just the slightest, as she began to push the baby out. In a few seconds, she tumbled backwards; her chest heaving as if she had run a marathon.

"Push!" the nurse exclaimed again.

Laura bent back up and tried to do as told, but it simply wouldn't budge.

Oh god, she thought the worst. don't tell me something went wrong.

It was too early in the operation to seed her questions, but curiosity spurred her, and through shaky breaths, she asked, "Something's wrong...isn't it?"

The rather medium-sized blob that was the nurse's head shook her head back and forth before she exclaimed, "Push!"

She bent forward and tried what she had done precedent times, but there were no other movement, save for afflicted jerks. It felt like the baby was content in its position, since, what seemed to be its head, brushed her abdomen for the twenty-eighth time.

"Come on," the nurse said. "you've got this,"

I've got this? Laura thought. As far as I could tell, I never had this in the first place!

But as soon as those thoughts brushed her mind, a scream erupted from her lips, and it was as if her maternal side decided it was time to kick in on the unlikeliest of moments, and just like that, an unexpected connection grew between her and her nameless baby.

It was as if it were speaking to her, strictly demanding to get out already as if it hadn't already done so for the past hour.

"Push!" the nurse exclaimed with more urgency. She was surprised she even heard that, but she pushed with all her might, even if the deliberate movement felt like donning the number "two" in the restroom.