The Ugly Baby

It happened in the middle of a hiking trip. Gem was pregnant, which in hindsight should have been her first clue. She dragged the weight of her belly up a mountain and a man, Geoff, carried her rucksack. He was dark and skinny, and his face was oddly asymetrical, as if the halves of two different faces had been stiched together. Gem had dated him for some time a few years back but they had lost touch afterwards. As she walked the narow path behind him, she tried to remember how they had ended up on this trip together. Had he looked as strange back then as he did now?

The belly was growing bigger and heavier the higher they got. Without warning the path ended and Geoff led them through the trees. He seemed to know where they were going. Gem was uneasy. She felt a presence behind her, another person had joined or maybe they had been there all along? When she turned around, her vision blurred as if she had forgotten to put in her contacts. The person was an undestinctive smudge marching along. Gem looked forward and her eyes cleared. She saw the trees, with their lifted roots and hanging branches, Geoff's back stooping under the weight of her rucksack. She turned around again, and her vision blurred just as before. She saw nothing but the indestinctive outlines of a human at her back.

The forest closed around them and Gem's apprehension grew. The vegitation was so dense, they could no longer walk forward. It looked more like a jungle now than a forest on a mountain she knew. In front of her Geoff halted. He let the rucksack fall to the ground with a thud.

Gem woke up at the noise. She was lying on a bed in a mountain shelter. She had stayed there before, she recognized the wooden ceiling and the pictures on the walls, all of them of a lake from different angles. Her hand shot to her belly. It stoked the smooth, flat surface and Gem let out a sigh of relief.

Next to her on the large bed slept a figure with their back turned to her. The sound of their breathing soothed her and she almost drifted back into sleep when she noticed movement at the corner of her eyes. Geoff stood at the foot of the bed and held something in his arms wrapped in a blanket.

"Isn't she beautiful?" He said and leaned over to show Gem the little package. "We took her out of you while you slept."

Gem froze. Under the layers of cloth peaked a face which was a miniature of Geoff's, halves of two faces which didn't match. Even the eyes were of a different colour and shape, a single lidded black one and the other a sparkling green with long eye lashes. On their own they may have been beautiful. But merged together on this tiny human they terrified Gem.

Geoff tried to place the baby on her arm and Gem pulled back as if stung.

"No," she said, "No, no, no."

She woke up covered in sweat. Nin was holding her and stoking her back.

"Calm down baby," Nin said, "you've had a nightmare."

Gem cling to her lover.

"You were not there," she said, "as if you didn't exist."

Nin looked at her askew.

"Weird thing..." Nin said. "I dreamt of chasing after someone in a forest, but I didn't know who. All I knew was that it was someone important and it was breaking my heart that I couldn't reach them."

"You were all blurred out when I tried to look back at you," Gem sighed.

Nin laughed.

"Did we have the same dream?"

"How did yours end?" Gem asked.

"I woke up and remembered that you were the most important person for me. And you were right here next to me."

Nin pulled Gem close. They'd had a fight the night before, on a topic which had started to come up often lately. Gem wanted a baby. Nin was unsure. It wasn't the idea of a baby which was frightening but the idea of losing everything they had built together to serve that unknown factor "baby". No late nights out, no impulsive trips to weird countries. No camping in the middle of nowhere. No more late mornings and lazy Sundays when they stayed naked and made love until it was dark again.

"How did your dream end?" Nin asked.

Gem pulled back from the embrace.

"I was pregnant," she said quietly. Nin stared at her, somehow unsurprised. "And then there was the baby..." Gem continued.

Nin kissed her to stop her from speaking. It was scary to think of losing her, and the dream still resonated in them both.

"You are the most important person for me," Nin repeated. "If you want a baby, I want a baby too."

But Gem was already shaking her head.

"You didn't let me finish," she said. "It was the ugliest baby I've ever seen. I didn't want it, it grossed me out to even look at it. I wanted to smuggle up to your sleeping form on the bed and just be at peace."

Nin frowned.

"I don't understand."

Gem pulled her closer.

"I don't fully understand either. But I think I was too focused on this thought of having a baby and I neglected us. You. I want us to reconnect again. And then, we'll see, right?"

"I understand what you mean," Nin nodded. "I was so focused on talking you out of it, that I forgot why I was with you in the first place. All the good things we had together, all the things I saw jeopardized by this idea of a baby, I lost them too, because we were no longer connected as we used to be."

"I'm no saying no baby at all, though," Gem added quickly, "just like let's find our way back to us, you and me, and then maybe. But no pressure."

"No pressure," Nin nodded. "And you know, we could always get a dog!"

Gem slapped Nin's hand jockingly.

"You are horrible," she said. But she was smiling.