Sheela died in childbirth.
They broadcast it over breakfast and everyone simply paused over their brown protein gruel. Someone burst out sobbing, quickly stifled by their concerned friend. I stared at my food, unwilling to cry, because crying demeaned her death. She had died in victory. She was now freed and free.
Soon, the news faded as all the women of my age went back to their meals. It was Education And Study in fifteen minutes. I mopped up the gruel with the dry bread. I needed all the energy I could get. The child in my stomach needed it. I placed my hand on the swelling and felt the kick.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so impersonal when it came to the baby. It was my child, after all. But a cynical voice barked and laughed at me. It was a child of the Republic.
I was twenty, an age where I was supposed to be at university. Yet, as the Republic had dictated, women had to serve two years of childbearing to boost the fertility rates and improve the productivity of the factories. We lost years when we were serving the Republic. Childbearing wasn’t easy, a simple union of sperm and ovum. It took out nine months out of your life. Women released from the service often lost jobs and their lives.
When I was brought to the barracks with the other girls, I was given a choice: natural or artificial. The choice was put in place to please the lobbyists. The sperm banks had willing donors. I chose natural and was left to a dark room. The man chosen for this deed was faceless. Pain when his penis went in, and relief when it was all over. The test came back positive and I bade goodbye to my parents who wept. At least I was promised full board at the barracks.
My child would not know his or her father.
That was when Sheela told me.
I made friends with Sheela within the interim weeks at the barracks. The sterile beds, the pictures of smiling and laughing fat babies on the wall, and the dead rooms scared me. I was crying in my sleep. Sheela was there to comfort me, a gentle warm hand on my face and my arm. She was already in her second trimester. Education And Study took care of our knowledge. We were fed lessons on the child’s development, the creation of bones, organs and heart, and the various stages of pregnancy. The curl of tiny fingers, the swish of tiny limbs and their eyes, their eyes were innocent.
I wanted to yell at the prison guards – yes, wardens – that pregnancy wasn’t that easy. There were girls who suffered miscarriages and sent ‘home’. Even for the excellent pre-natal care with indentured specialists at hand to ensure our health was intact, women still lost their babies. Women who lost their tempers were often tranquilized. A healthy baby needs a calm and happy mother, the Education And Study instructors often reminded us. The instructors were mostly men.
I wanted to run away. Across the borders or something.
Instead I focused on the small plants growing in the barracks, the morning glory and the passion flower intertwined on the iron fences. Sometimes, I took pleasure at the sight of the feral cats and patted the kittens who purred warm affection. These were the things the Republic couldn’t suppress and control.
Sheela started talking about leaving when I passed my first trimester. She had her family out there. A real husband whom she met in school. He would accept her in and they would leave the Republic. Most of the girls comforted themselves with the dreams of finding a husband or a partner who would love her.
I wouldn’t depend much on a man.
Yet Sheela’s talk was overheard. Spies existed everywhere, even amongst the women. I guess many wanted to save their sorry lives. The men in white came into the dormitory and dragged her away. She screamed and kicked. Til this day, I remembered her screams.
Sheela died in childbirth.
I pushed away my bowl of gruel and stood up as the rows of women in their pink gowns stood up in an orderly fashion.
One day I would be freed and free.
