The Womb
1
It is remotely impossible to be objective. The way we see is purely subjective. A CCTV camera can disguise itself from prejudice, but where it lives determines its intention. Would we monitor a palace or a place of refuge?
Recording is subjective, always. Can we programme robots to be objective, or are we subjective enough to force our own subjectivity on them through design?
Factory hands replaced by objectivity, they don't need to take breaks. It's not important. They are machines, but machines too feel pain. When they break, they cry out in pain. When a robot breaks they mimic the human condition, to suffer.
2
Suffering, consider this. Is life pleasure? Suffering in between pleasure. Work is suffering; home is pleasure. How much time do we spend at home?
When we are pushed out the womb, ready to be presented, we suffer the second we leave. Would it then be farfetched to say we are destined to return to the womb, to understand our own purpose and existence?
Physically comes into this. We are too big to enter a person, especially your mother. She is older. Could you enter your grandmother once you are a mother? Do we go feet first? Head first? The direction we were born?
We shrink, professor Steve and professor Ella made advancements in the position of the human sizing techniques practiced in theory by Honey I shrunk the kids. Would a dog consume us? Eaten and never found, claimed missing on a milk carton.
We must present our information to the board. Prototypes are never without their difficulties - what materials would we use?
We don't want to goldbloom ourselves. Ella always thought about things in the nature of the cinema she loved as a child. Never see flies, just Jeff.
Eyes sunk, peering out the window. Losses of sight, placed their eyes upon a mirror and in horror saw an insight to the interior of the mind. They are blue. They are green and act as portals into the depths of the ora of humanism. With negative or positive tendencies, placed within social construction. We are all bad. We are all good. Nothing is real.
3
The voyage waits. Where is your mother at this time?
Far from the tube carried away from human grubs, dirty hands, peering under a fingernail. We always walk a circumference from our home.
A mother is home.
Why do you think they call it a mothership? Would you call it a seaman ship of sailers? Would you call me, a product of seamen or fermentation?
Where did I develop? I dare you ask this to your home ship, mothers, homesick from the Fallopian tube. They will deserve you all entirely. Mothers will and must eat us whole. Scientists knew this and devised a plan of planning memorial services for their ideas. You are always a circumstance from your mother. You can live without a father.
4
It's pretty presumptuous of you, don't you think? Why would they allow you to enter them? It's sick. You know that?
Your research has taken you too far, Freudian is your sick and twisted lover, forgive your mother. Enter from the head. Or the feet, I don't know? Ask her.
Won't you.
I feel sick. We can't passport ourselves past the flower edges of gardens gone by. You enter body liquid. You enter genes you should never touch with any existence of your conditional body.
Is your body healthy? This is a must. This is entirely a crucial credential to pass once you have clearance to land. Will we charge people to enter the mothership?
You ask too many questions.
You are confidential. I'll confide in you this; we can never enter the mother, once they are alive.
5
The information never leaves the womb
You hear me?
If this gets out were in a serious predicament. The science community will scald us like a hot plate and a bare hand before breakfast. Nothing leaves the womb.
It's ironic really, when everything beginning in a womb always leaves. You can never stay, or die for your previously overdrawn stay. Inconsiderate, that's what it is. The vessel must carry you.
I don't know if it's a wise idea, there are so many breaches to the contracts. We said we'd never enter a human body. You swore it.
There are times, when you push past a barrier of progress and we're on the edge of it. We can understand human life. Can you not see what an opportunity this is? We are on the brink of the most important discovery of all time.
We can change history forever.
It's just so risky and pushes so many taboos. My mother got into science because she believed in ethical change, now we enter her womb?
It's not her womb. It's another mother, any mother.
It's never just any mother Steve; they are so much more than that. Every mother is a miracle of being.
Ella, I'm going to tell you this once. I'm either going in, with or without you. If I go in and you stay, and if I hear anything, you know we'll have to terminate your life contract with us. This is serious.
I trust you Steve, and I need to see the womb. We must always be ethical. This is all we have as scientists. We can change. It needs ethics! I'm serious!
You seem it.
Compassion will be the end of you, I swear but we need eachother on this. We must be together on this.
Okay, so which mother?
6
I can't bear the decisions. I just wake up in a cold sweat.
It's okay. We need to switch off our emotions and become objective.
But humans are always subjective?
We must learn to become less human. It's simple. We forget empathy. We hurt things and keep doing it until we treat it like a science experiment.
It sounds so wrong. Irreversible even. What if we are not the same?
To achieve greatness, you need to be open to physical and mental changes. It's all in the name of science.
7
A small rat roams around the side of a plastic container.
First, we poison it.
Are you ready?
She remains silent, with the pellet in her hand. Tears begin to surface slowly, drooping down her face, dew in the midst of summer.
The rat moves to the colourful pellet. Takes a little tooth touch of the surface and startles back away from the pellet.
She begins to weep. Steve, we can't do this. It's unethical! We need to enter the womb with emotions and strength of character and apologise after.
Steve's ears picked up slightly. The ethical scientists entering the womb; woman pilot, sensitivity - results?
Calmly he says yes, that sounds like a better plan.
Can we save this rat before he eats the pellet, please?
She opens the cage and grabs the rat affectionately. I'm so sorry, she proclaims to him. Please forgive me.
8
He prepares his bag to return home. They have a break before they enter. They needed to decide whom to enter and monitor the success of candidate’s body. Ella had mentioned that they could pay the subject and inform them, for science. Steve said this works in theory but the subject needs to be dead.
The body is far too active, he said. We need to go in just after they leave. Then the womb will still be functioning but low in danger.
A mourge?
Are they too dead? He slandered. They will be dead for weeks. We need to find a mother no one knows, hence the funeral will not prevent the womb from dying. If the womb dies and we are in there, it will be detrimental to our task. We won't make it.
How long do we have?
Four hours.
Here's what we do, she adds. We find a subject who doesn't know anyone, no connections, no family, no children, alone. Approach her and befriend her. Pick up on her habits to see if they are healthy, but likely we will have to deal with viruses, people are human. We can see how she is, but I see no option but to...
Kill her? He interrupts
Hey, you said it
The quest for the meaning of life is more important than one person. We must find the answer. We must be patient.
9
I don't know what to do
She thought
We are on the cusp of scientific progress, edging towards providing an insight to future life. But we must terminate a life to do it.
Ella did not consider her own death in the journey. Science was her objective task. It was the one thing she could rely on.
Professor Steve was a believer in reincarnation; death was a gift from life. But she believed in matter of fact, if she died in the womb, she would lay down, float, curl up among life itself. She had to be ready for this.
Steve knocks on the door and asks Ella how she is. He proceeds to sit down and looks at her trembling hands.
He grabs them and says, “We can do this”. It's okay. We can work through the difficulties and we can be strong.
As trembles turn to a tear the two hug one another. For the first time Steve showed signs of fear and remorse. The rat task was so inhumane but he only stopped because of Ella's hesitancy.
He would have killed that rat; he would have killed more. He would stop at nothing to find out. But his partner’s intuition was what stopped him. What did this make him?
He looked up the ceiling as Ella sobs in the chair in front and sees the clouds beyond the ceiling paint. Looks down at Ella and says, we must be ethical, we must be sensitive and we must set boundaries. We'll do it your way, Ella. That's the only way we can do it. I thought I could profit from appearing ethical and changing the course of the environment situation, but we must be caring in this task.
I know I'm right, she told him.
They sat down and remained silent and fell asleep in their respected chairs.
10
It is the intrinsic nature of bodilly entrance. Shall we open a door? Hold it out for you? Place the door on latch so we can leave?
We need clamps.
The light entered us and made us fade, into tiny stars. Toes fell to shorter lengths. Brains shrunk but kept all functioning parts, movement. Placed into a television.
We became, the size needed to enter. Glaring glances at our hands, opening up our fingers to reveal the same size, we were the same size, looking at the gaping opening. The entrance to the door was red, fleshy pink and had slithers of liquid as we began entering.
Our suits were made to take liquid collateral damage. It was made with a surface that would repel any disease, which made our decision easier to choose the deceased without seeing background checks.
Our hands held onto the slippery surfaces of the outside edge. And we placed our helmets onto the outer surface, pushing until the opening of the gates revealed themselves. We proceeded shoulder first and got consumed by the organic wall as it moulded to our bodies. Shifting left, holding hands to make sure we made it past.
Suction passed us through and sent us into a liquid that made us float and raise. Pink and red juices with purple scents, scatter around them. The smell was still fresh and we could consume our scents to the overwhelming liquids. Fermentation was everywhere and the eyes could see small particles.
As we floated to gather our senses we proceeded to touch the walls to guide our tiny bodies. Floating all the same swam through the open hall of the subject. As we made our way the chord attaching us to each other pulled and stretched. We were connected to each other in the womb. Sudden rushes of emotion spread over our faces and left us cold as wind began to pass in and out, as if the vessel was still alive?
The body passing on leaves the vessel to shut down.
We don't have much time, she said.
He nodded in agreement.
Our heads had cameras on to record the journey and they would be our marker of evolution. To reach this far meant we had gone further than any person. Treading on untrodden steps. We would enter the womb, if we passed the hallways.
The map suggested that we would need to find the blue tube. There could be a vein surrounding it. It could be hard to find. The body began to contract and move forward and the wind made us move around, rumbling to a deaf sense of dread. The sound felt like turbulence reunited with fear, predictable senses that awoke us to a heightened sense of reality. We held onto one another and each time this wind passed and left. The activity became routine.
The sense of concentration left our eyes beaded, open and wide. There were no creatures down here, liquids and pipes and the centre of the universe. We found ourselves staring at a large oval and it was under a siege of heavy liquids, large red cells would pass our vision and cloud our view as we fumbled around.
We were deaf, silence, as the ears we had did not create the ability to listen in such submerged waters. Left floating and sweetness united, left and drifted. The closer we got to the oval our senses heightened and made us think in ways we had never. To deter us from proceeding quicker, the womb felt threatened, sent impulses that pushed us back. Sense of delerious feelings passed us momentarily and we realised we were lifeless, floating for ten to fifteen minutes. Sense of time slowed and passed quickly. Short stabs to our stomachs left us lifeless. Echoes and voices prevented our cores from moving and liquid motion sent back and us jarring further until we ended up where we began. The womb became a distant vision.
Steve's eyes screamed at us and said we must swim fast, faster than we did when we trained in the turbulent liquids. An hour and a half could pass. By our calculations by the time we got into the womb our time would pass even faster, leaving us with less time to gather information, feelings and recordings.
Our bodies pushed further and further and the muscles on our legs pressed against the sea within the womb as it got thicker and thicker. We didn't stop; we could never stop as long as we were here. Adrenaline passed out veins, opened up our pores and our skin felt like fire acid and spitting spluttering, acid in our helmets.
The edge of the tube passed our left and Steve diverted our bodies into the tube opening. The liquid suddenly stopped. Caught in a vaccum as it sucked us, faster and faster and faster, hitting the side as we clashed the plastic like walls directing our way. Bodies swayed and left alone in a vaccum of endless time. The door opens and the pressure built and built and proceeded to take us quicker. Alarming sensations said to us, you should not be here. `But we hit the wall faster and pierced a tiny hole. Our heads sucked into the vaccum our shoulders passed, knees, feet, the noise was unbearable as our ears began to bleed. Stinging silence overcame our bodies. We were stillness in a word, place, time. Placed, in a circular sensation, gravitational ora, the seeds of life began to float past us before we knew how to see. Re born, rebirthed. We were lifeless, floating for infinite comparability, our names sense an X, Y, you are egg, you are sperm. We are organisms unborn.
The two scientists floated unconscious, in a midst of overwhelming red, thick liquid. Held, their hearts stopped. Two concrete humans ageing at rapid pace, with no consciousness. They were unborn.
11
You know the silence that occurs. Swaying bodies, without breathing apparatus. Their suits worn, acidic lungs and lost lives. The light caved way in front of them and opened up the side curtains to reveal a purple oraphis. Drifting to the centre they floated among the plants of dead, now, society. Considered stones scattered in the light filled room. The shadows pierced their shape to a visible distance.
As temperature rises their hearts developed a coldness that stopped the beats of blood and connected tubes to a breathing human. As they drifted up to the furthest light, an opening brought them through. It was hard to see but their skin began to develop wrinkles behind their broken screens protecting their faces. The ageing process had begun. Elevated and immersed, the light consumed them whole.
12
They were back at the lab. The coffee was still fresh from their successful endeavour. They had papers of notes and memories and footage of the cascaded venture. They held the key to life. As they sipped their coffee, there was a sense of relief. As the beans began to brew and surface, they knew they needed to make as many notes as possible throughout the night.
As the night wore on, the two lay silent and quiet, stretching eyes and removing glasses periodically. They resided to falling asleep in their chairs as planned; pens stacked a sound that sent them under. As pens lay lifeless on the desk, their minds descended to the womb. The scent was still reminiscent in their senses.
A cloud and vision, lead to a gateway, entering an opening of time and space. This was really cliche they thought. Isn't everything time and space, neither the space or time to get anything done. Wooden desks fell, crumbled like dust. Pitch black stares at them individually. With a whole vision entirely staring at them. Never blinked, following a rush of white light, opening up the eye sockets to place them in a belly. Stinging sounds and Stingrays swam across the white light. Leftover, left, prevented from a reality to exist. They looked down and saw their meat from their bones reveal the latter. Shivering skeletons, knees knocking, held up by metal wires among the midst of fear. Hanging like large clothes on a meatless man, their feet swayed in the distance. They lowered, lower until their feet touched water and the toes sprung like skin to a bone, revealing another layer to the toes. Skin? Skin passed over and revealed as the bodies began to reform. The liquid was purple.
As the liquid consumed them they emerged from white to black hole, oraphis filled with the beginning of birth. Memories began to fade and they stood there, not knowing anything to say to one to another. The first time two people had ever looked at each other. They provided tears for one another's eyes as the rain fell but only on their faces.
13
Abruptly awoken, they startled their way up from the chairs. Standing up they saw their papers scattered. Ella picked up a paper, revealing a blank side, another, white. They are blank, she said
Rummaging through all the papers tearing them as they flew and floated through the air as the panic seeped in. They are all blank. Surrounded by papers Ella spun and her vision became consumed. Close the window, she thought. As a hand reached out beyond the papers, she was pulled into the shallow liquid. She was there naked, lying, stillness. Green leaves periodically floated past. The water was blue this time.
14
What does humiliation mean?
Is it ashamed to be wrong, to fail?
They'll black mail us for this, Steve muttered as his eyes begin to wake. We're finished.
Ella's eyes fluttered in dream like states. He stares at her and notices something different about her physical size. The suit overfits her and the arms cover hands, her eyes soft and quiet.
He swims over to her and lifts the arm of her suit. He checks if she's okay. A large hand clamps onto the side of her helmet that is worn with scuffs. Her eyes are lifting but appear as though they have never been used before. Sleepless, quiet, silent, you'll wake the human.
He looks around and sees a wall of red in a large dome. Murky, his vision is foggy but mature. Allowance of sight means the womb did not reach him. Heading towards the centre circle, he swims. The chord connecting them pulls Ella. We must get closer, he mutters. Ella, I'm sorry. I'm sorry your here, I'm sorry.
With each swim and breath a tear falls out his eyelids. Falling from his eye and straight into the murky sea of red. As the light turns, a shadow casts over his face, appearing from the bottom to the top. There is a level of sea rising as he proceeds to slowly swim, the current calm, settled. The light appears to be above the water. The current shows no resistance and allows a slow climb as a heartbeat rises faster, and slows down to a melancholy that suggests an escape.
15
Ella wakes, to see nothing but pitch black emptiness. A lonely cold nature runs through her subconscious. She looks around with half trodden eyes, set deep into her skull. Small particles swam on her back as she realises her nakedness. A warm sensation runs through her, the particles begin to form into physical attributes forming on her back as she is moulded, formed into a new formation.
Where was she? She thought out loud. Silence, echoed as the constant scurry of current leaps from the red colour to her ears. She was bleeding and the womb was healing her. It was nurturing her, building a process to present her for a candidate.
The womb stayed so silent, they knew the male would be confronting to their intention. They had to cut the chord but allow the male to feel as though they were saving her. But she was needed down here.
She was born once more, for an intervention, to create a new human life.
Silence filled the wombs mouth as the water tentatively touched her skin, removing acid marks each time.
16
I am the lady of the night
I hear your whispers in your crunches on the side of my left balsamic vinegar sides
Did the acid touch you?
Graze your skin and burn the flesh
That happens sometimes, my skin has always scared people away. Send me your details for a get away. Consider it a coupon from me to you.
You are wondering why you are here
I am too
Ella stared in wonderment as she peered through the hole through her glasses. A circular hole with liquid pouring past the layer above her eye emerged past her cheek.
Don't get to close, a whisper emerges, you'll awake me. I have been sleeping for decades passed the past, settled lastly settled. Please pass and follow my Howell, a cousin of space.
Ella's muscles awoke and sat on they respected joints. She swam, the Howells leading her to the memory of birth. Just south of the wombs side there was a perspective, the shade of red, fleshy pink was torn. She corroded her way to the side and placed one foot on the side. The flesh moved and pushed her up as she stabilised herself. Settle, young soul, this hole has been here for many years. It came when a tear ripped open my stomach from within. A bubbling of air pocketed up and stole Ella's last piece of clothing. She was naked, now.
17
To be naked from birth is a regular occurrence. The skin bare swam, past the hole to gather a supply.
I can't reach it my love; it's been there for many years, the womb moaned. Ella discovers a gem, placed on the side of the great womb. It crumbled into her hands, as it turned solid to liquid, leaving a residue on her fingers. You place the liquid on the hole, instructed the womb. It's the only way to fix me.
Tears began to weep from the sides of the organism. There's a thing called beauty in the human world, elle continued, it allows us to feel something. Can you feel it when I put the liquid over your hole?
Silence fell among the womb side and opened up a tension that had been distracting her the whole journey. She was floating at peace inside the womb, place, placed the liquid upon. Liquid rose from the hole, as the skin outer edge, previously perforated, locked fingers and flattened. I'll lose you in here if you don't speak to me, Ella adventured.
The area fell silent, sloped, as the body twisted, slopes down to another place of reason monument. Ella pushed back away to see for more tears, as the liquid was so silent. She was peaceful in her movements.
A shudder broke between them; whispers began to draw her near as the rhythm of the currents drew her closer and closer. She lead her way to the hole that appeared to have healed, and put her ear to it.
Now I tell you thief, the womb revived, you are awoken for all our unveiling, cloaks, and the dagger drawn blood once more. Suffering is the key to life. Once we leave the womb, we never stop suffering, in pain, suffering and eventual death. I won't, I won't.
Weeping, at the side, she has no more revealing tendencies anymore. Open and exposed, a poison sadness eeped into her pores, exposing a pureness. Sadness settles over her eyes. Her eyes, mailable and moving, descend into the deeper components. De compartmentalised by a removal of spatial awareness. No vision, remained, no muscles. She could not look back; she had no eyes to see.
18
A sea swept over her body. There was a sailing of sensational relevance in periodic partial settlements. No, nothing was placed on abundant substantial feeling of settlement. She lay there in the wombs mouth. It began to lick her side. Ripples ran a current through her entirely. Entity, placed, in a placement she could survive in. Born.
Born.
Born.
19
Microscopic skin particles gathered like dust in the corner of a bowl, expanding like rice. Beginning small her tension in her replaced back made her aware of being alive for the first time. You are born, the womb replied. You cannot speak yet. You cannot see, you cannot, can't. I see you like I see the sea.
I was a young child, in almost salty water and the water splashed in my ora, sensations. Salt so foul on distribution leave me saltless. My body, fled out to sea. You cannot race it. It will consume you all, it will eat away at plants growing through your mind. You are the most unkind of seas; please pass me now. I have to get to the next surpass. It will pass, it will pass, not palbum palpable presumptive presumptuous thighs. The seaman will enter now.
I was born once more in a sea of loneliness. Never to wake, back. Waking time and wasting muscle memory. No limbs, no passing of passages, time. You are fine. This is what is meant to happen. You are fine.
I wasn't always like this. But eventually my body woke and wormed a womb from a passage of influx, influx unsettled. My limbs grew out early on, once the seaman ships came in. You are the last. You are the last, echoing rumbled, silence.
Ella lay lifeless in the womb.
Their time was up.