Deeds Like Rain
Art by Lauren Farkas
The commercial on my friend’s flat screen has lots of babies. Bald babies. Babies with one tooth. Babies who crawl. Babies who have bread rolls for legs. But most importantly, adorable babies. And my friend sitting next to me on the couch asks, aren’t babies just the cutest? And I feel like I’m being set up. Because how can anyone say no to that without seeming like a psychopath, so I say yes. It’s just easier that way.
My friend’s baby is sitting in his highchair near the window. He has scooped all of his lasagna out of the bowl and is smearing it all over his face. The smearing is very calculated, like performance art by Marina Abramović, except with occasional cooing. My other friend returns from the hallway she disappeared down so long ago I forgot she was even here. She holds a kid in each arm. Her hair is disheveled and there’s a wild look in her eyes. Her stomach bump implies that she could produce another life any moment. I feel tired just looking at her.
Later that night, I drink a whole bottle of Cab and pass out fully clothed. I’m awoken by the smell of dirty diapers. There are babies crawling out of the cracks in the walls. Their faces peak into my window, little wrinkly fingers gripping the sill. I can see babies tumbling on car hoods outside under the streetlights. Hear baby rattles from blocks away. And if I look close enough, there’s even a baby hiding out in the moon.
The next day there’s another baby in a shopping cart in front of me at the supermarket checkout. We have a staring contest. His mom notices and I can tell the intensity of the contest freaks her out because she shifts in place uneasily. She snatches her receipt from the cashier and pushes the cart away, looking over her shoulder at me a few times. The baby, on the other hand, never breaks eye contact until the automatic doors ding shut behind them.
Back in my car, I rip into a family-sized bag of barbecue potato chips. I eat the whole thing so fast I feel disgusted with myself. Here I am with crumbs all over me and my stomach gurgling and my mouth salivating the way it does when I’m going to be sick. I open my car door and puke a little on the yellow line which separates my parking spot from the next. A woman getting into a white SUV witnesses this. Her scowl tells me that she is disgusted for me too, and I don’t want to ruin her day, so I tell her it’s morning sickness. Her face softens as she hurries over to hand me a tissue to wipe my mouth. She tells me that ginger chewing gum helped her get through the early stages. Asks me if I need anything. Water? A doctor? And I shake my head no, saying she’s too kind, that I’ll be OK. She tells me it’s nothing, that she’s happy to help and then looks down at me with her hands on her hips and says, my good deeds are like rain, I drop a little everywhere.
And all I can think as she gets in her vehicle and drives off is that there are probably loads of plain white mugs out there just sitting on factory shelves, waiting to have that quote printed on them.
L. Soviero was born in Queens, New York but now lays her hat in Sydney. She has an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. When she is not writing flash, she works as a Learning Designer.