One by One

The children of my memories follow me where ever I go. I listen to them whisper to each other, telling about their births and how they came to be here. It is a confusion of sadness to me, and yet I count each one and rub their silky little heads like rosary beads, each one a prayer. I remember all the days they were born.

When we leave the house I sew their hands to each other so that none will be lost. I count and re-count them, noticing the ones that are starting to look anemic and offering them the last few drops of milk in me. It is important to me that they do not die of neglect. Some of them are so thin already that I can almost see through them. We shuffle along like that, me and my chain of children, slowly through the streets. I make sure they all cross the road safely. I make sure we all get back home.

At night, the children unsewn and overflowing my bed, the noise of them keeps me awake for hours. My head is busy with their stories and the importance they place in their own telling. Their tiny voices carve pits in my ears. I don't move out of fear of knocking one out of bed. All of these children are so precious to me. I would hate to lose one without knowing it.

At last, in the early hours, all but one of the children are quietly asleep. I spoon into this one so sweetly, curling my body around it to isolate it from the others. "Tell me again about how we used to wake up and the windows would be covered in the fog of our married breath," I say, and I gently wrap my hands around its throat. It begins from its birth, this narrator of my heartache.

Just before dawn I begin to squeeze as the last of the words whisper out of it and into my ears. I sense it dying against my body, between my hands. I feel it become cold, become stiff, and then become nothing more than air and I wonder how many more nights I can conduct these executions before the other children start to know.