14

11:00:00

One night he was woken up by moans coming from the toilet. It was 1 a.m. and she was making strange noises like a wounded animal. She was in pain.

‘It started.’

He called for a taxi. She took her labor bag and went down the stars. Through the window, he saw her entering the car.

She was away for a week. It was a silent week when he read a lot about labor. He learned about the cramps, the placenta and the order in which it usually took place. He watched dozens of childbirths on YouTube, startled at the fact that sexual organs could be so practical and productive. The head coming from woman’s vagina looked more alien-like, but it all made sense. Even the sex made sense. He ignored the fact that women on films were screaming from pain. He was appreciative and respectful that they could actually produce a human being. It looked like a miracle. Their bodies disfigured, their vaginas spread x number of times, their breast swelled but they could create a walking-talking-eating-and-living human, which he had never had and would never be capable of doing. It made him both fascinated and jealous.

She came after a week. She came with the grapefruit. She showed him the grapefruit through the keyhole.

Grapefruit was funny. It was plump and had blue eyes. Grapefruit was a boy, as he was kindly informed, and when it appeared it weighed 3, 65 kilos. He looked quite normal and he was healthy. She looked exhausted and said that it had been the worst day of her life. He reminded himself of the pain he saw on the faces of YouTube women giving birth. He felt sorry for her, but now when the grapefruit was outside, she should be relieved and happy.

She looked less happy, though. She looked sad and exhausted.

She asked him from time to time to look after the grapefruit as she had to go for a walk or visit the doctor. She asked him to feed him and change his nappies. He did this first with awkwardness but then he learned how to operate the grapefruit. It gave him this strange feeling of satisfaction to make grapefruit clean, fed and comforted. He knew how to take care of himself and he intuitively knew how to comfort a little one.

There were days when she disappeared for a couple of hours. There were nights when she ignored the grapefruit’s cries. There was one night when she packed all her things and left the flat.

She didn’t come back. She just left the grapefruit in its bed. She stuck a note to the bed.

‘Have a nice life. Both of you.’

That was the last thing she had ever communicated to him.

She was the last flatmate he had in his life. Except for the grapefruit. The grapefruit took her room and, even though he was little, he got a lot of space. Generally, the grapefruit behaved well. It was nourished and clean. But these were only the first months and there were many more months to approach.

He wanted to be prepared. He ordered more books on the subject of raising a human. He ordered some toys. And when the grapefruit was crying, he played to him a lullaby he found online, as he wasn’t good at singing.