Читать книгу Invisible Earthquake - Malika Ndlovu - Страница 9

1st January, 15h05

I have just taken the tablet to catalyse the contractions that will deliver you, out of your nest, my womb. I sit with a lit candle in the garden, listening to a baby crying next door, wind blowing through the trees, a plane flying over high above. How do I leave home today full of you and come home tomorrow, empty? My mind swings between dead calm practicalities of to do lists and necessary arrangements, to tears cutting me down to a deep quiet grief I cannot fully feel even though I know it is there.

How could I imagine that your last fevered fluttering was goodbye? How can I hold the thought that you have been sleeping lifeless inside of me since then, already gone? It's been almost four days. I race from recollecting all the signs that came before to tell us that this was where your path would lead, signs that I shut out so many times, clear calls for me to face the silence of you no longer kicking within me.

This morning in the shower a clear image of these few words on a blank page came to me:

“Your death has changed my life.”