Last night, I dreamt we touched down on Goldilocks.
In the dream, it was nighttime. The ship had landed in the middle of a large clearing encircled by a forest as far as my eyes could see. Greg and I were standing outside the large bay door, ready to descend to the ground below. The massive sky twinkled with pinpoints of pulsating light and I could hear the engines cooling down, an electrostatic charge still clinging to the massive vessel’s exterior. As we took our first steps down, I could feel loose strands of my hair being pulled toward the static charge and I swiped at a few loose tendrils stuck against my forehead and cheek.
Descending the last step, Greg took my hand in his, his thumb rubbing back and forth against the tiny bulge of my wrist. His palms were dry and warm, whereas mine were cold and clammy with mixed nervousness and excitement. My heart raced with anticipation and a singular dread that the air I was taking into my lungs would cause my brain to hemorrhage or shut down completely.
“Why don’t we have oxygen packs on?” I suddenly thought to myself.
I stopped us for a brief moment to take stock. The air around the ship seemed fine. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs. It was heavier than the ship’s conditioned air and smelled slightly of rose blossoms.
No initial adverse reaction; this was a good thing.
The ground was covered with wet grass, the trees with large, moving leaves. As far as we could see, it seemed remarkably similar to Earth.
My eyes fully adjusted to the night, I looked up at Greg’s face. He had a wide smile plastered from cheek to cheek, his teeth exposed. I could tell he was excited and eager to explore further. His curly brown hair swept down across his right eye and his grin widened. Greg wasn’t wearing his eyeglasses, which I thought curious, but he seemed to be seeing everything just fine, his eyes keenly alert even in the murky darkness that surrounded us on every side. My eyes scanned further down his body and I then saw that he was only wearing a white undershirt and his work jeans. No shoes, only his bare feet glistening with wet dew. This too, I found strange, but I was still under the enchantment of the newness of Goldilocks and because of this, I didn’t say a word.
Mainly, I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but I didn’t want to disrupt the sheer wonder we were both experiencing. From what I could discern, Goldilocks was going to exceed every expectation we had hypothesized. All of my worries and paranoia I had kept inside for the past five years appeared to be all for naught.
He guided us forward, his eyes fixed on the dense growth of trees ahead.
The moon hung large in the sky, its radiance more cold and intense than the Earth’s. The light threw a bluish-white halo behind Greg’s head, creating a thin glowing border around his hair and face. He held his smile, his thumb continuing its graceful sweep against my wrist.
I found it odd, but he hadn’t spoken a word since we stepped out of the ship.
It was then, just a few yards away, in the moon’s white glow, I saw I was still pregnant -- obscenely so.
Even in my dream, this fact made no logical sense. My stomach bulged out in front of me like an overstuffed feedsack. In one way, it felt completely a part of my body; in another, it felt present yet weightless, a phantom limb still attached.
From the size of my stomach, I knew my body was ready to give birth. I began to panic, realizing Greg and I were the only ones who had exited the ship.
The others were not going to be opening the pneumatic bay door behind us.
They were all dead.
I could see their bodies stacked and rotting; one on top of each other in a misshapen heap in The Rectory.
How I knew this, I had no idea. It was a simple, awful fact known to me in my dream.
I suddenly felt a sharp kick under my ribs.
The baby is still inside of me.
It kicked again and I felt something inside me unraveling.
Above, the moon sailed on, growing more intense. In its ethereal rays, I clearly saw the kicking and shifting inside of me were causing my belly to distend even further. The weight in my gut increased twofold. I groaned under the weight and then, the next moment, it felt like nothing was inside me, only air.
In this moment of relief, I turned to Greg, but he had let go of my hand and was wandering toward the perimeter of the forest. And again, I noticed his bare feet. He was always so sensitive about his feet that it then seemed grotesquely out of place that he should be strolling around on a strange planet without the safety of something buffering his feet from this alien landscape.
I opened my mouth to scream to him, but another enormous kick walloped my insides. The wind was knocked out of me and my legs buckled under the increasing weight of my stomach. I fell forward onto the damp ground.
Strangely, my face didn’t feel the cold grass as I had anticipated. The monstrous baby multiplying in size inside my womb prevented me from ever really smacking the ground. Instead, my belly, now the size of an extra large beach ball, acted as a fleshy cushion, diagonally propping up my upper body.
Pushing up with my arms, I tried to right myself, but because of the dead weight of my stomach, I couldn’t even sit up. I knew if I leaned to the side or if somehow I ended up on my back, that would be the end. My spine and vital organs would me mashed under my child’s rapidly increasing girth.
A new thought blazed into my head, “The baby must now be the size of a two year old – maybe even a three year old.”
As if on cue, I could feel the form inside me squirming, pushing with its fully formed fingers, scratching me with slimy fingernails. Its elbows slid against my skin and I wanted more than anything to shriek, to let loose some sort of primal recognition that this was not right. That the baby inside me was killing me.
“It is going to burst out of my belly fully grown, covered in bits of its own placenta. And it will be very hungry.”
Before I could register the implications of that thought, Greg was there, helping me up, acting as a crutch and somehow getting me onto my feet. I don’t know how my bloated frame could stand upright, but through some force of dream- magic, I was able to walk, my navel nearly dragging against the lush grass, the small body inside swaddled in my stretched womb.
Relieved to be mobile, I didn’t notice at first that he was aiming our course forward, toward the forest – and not in the opposite direction, back to the safety of the ship.
I limped a couple of steps forward and directly in front of me, I heard several branches snap. Then, with a large thud, something hit the forest floor, causing the ground beneath me to quiver – and causing me to almost lose my balance. A rustling echoed from the denseness of trees. A sudden gust of wind stirred the boughs and the leaves made a light crackling noise in the air. I looked at Greg and wanted to tell him that we should go back up to the ship and wait until morning to explore any further, but he was pulling me toward the forest, toward the sounds of the branches breaking. He seemed fascinated by the noises; his smile still unbroken.
Two more snapped off followed by two quaking thuds. I tried to speak, but another sharp kick filled my diaphragm with excruciating pain. Miraculously, I remained on my feet, but instead of words coming out of my mouth, I doubled over and retched.
I waited for the taste of acid and bile, but instead, a thick, milky substance poured out of my mouth. It had a sweet, fatty taste. For two seconds, the stream was uncontrollable and then, as if someone had turned off the faucet, it was over. My chin, neck, breasts and stomach were coated with the filmy, yellowish substance. The liquid soaked my shirt, clinging to my skin and warming it. A terrible yet familiar stench began to rise up into my nostrils. My head began to spin and for a brief moment, I was dizzy from the putrid smell. I had vomited up my own breast milk.
Looking over, Greg’s lower right arm and wrist were also covered in my sick, but he seemed not to notice what had happened and was still pulling me on. I tried to yank my slimy wrist free, but the pain and the vomiting left every inch of my being completely spent. I could not muster the strength to fight his pulling.
A deep growling drew my attention to the forest. From where the noises had come earlier, I saw movement by the base of the outer trees. I could make out the dim outlines of two large, hulking creatures under what appeared to be a cluster of large oaks. Both shadowy forms pulled themselves up to a standing position. Once more, I weakly attempted to pull free from Greg’s clasp, but he firmly held on, guiding me onto a path where amidst a growth of viney thorn bushes, the grass began to grow taller.
The wind picked up and I could now smell the sweet air again, only this time mixed with the rich scent of breast milk. The combination of both made my stomach turn – and it was all I could do to keep myself from gagging.
Covering my mouth, I looked ahead and now recognized what the two standing beasts were. Wild bears. They were both relatively the same size and stature. “Kodiaks,” I thought. But, as we approached, their true height became apparent. They were grizzlies. I was struck with fascination and fear.
We were about twenty feet away from them when Greg finally stopped pulling me. For the first time, the smile dissipated from his face. He took a moment and said blankly to the bears, “We’ve kept our part of the bargain.”
I heard Greg’s voice, but his natural tone seemed flat and hollow, as if someone had installed a speaker into his voicebox and some person from miles away was talking through it.
“We’ve brought you the baby and its mother as you asked.”
I did not know what bargain Greg was referring to, but the fact that he was calling me “its mother” sent a bolt of fear to the pit of my stomach.
I started to interrupt, but from the corner of my eye I saw one of the bears stepping forward. It was down on all fours, approaching the two of us at a slow, measured pace, a stalking pace. It stopped within striking distance and stood.
Sniffing the air, it brushed at its small ears with its enormous paws and I could see a hint of its razor-like claws sheathed underneath its glossy brown fur. Its eyes were two smooth pebbles, almost insectile, but when it spoke, an animated spark lit the inky depths of its pupils.
It said, “The baby is still inside the mother. We cannot help her give birth to the child. This was not part of our bargain.”
I understood what was happening and knew I had only a moment to act.
I yanked Greg’s arm, brought his wrist to my mouth and bit down as hard as I could. His flesh was softer than I expected and immediately, I could taste blood coursing over my tongue and trickling down my throat. He howled in pain and tried to free his wrist. I thought of the baby inside me and clenched my jaw even tighter. The insides of my mouth, my gums, my teeth, my throat, everything tasted of blood.
Before I could register the bear’s large paw striking my face, I was on the ground, flat on my back. My sagging breasts were squeezed between its two front legs and its wet saliva was dripping onto my cheeks. I was going to scream, but instead, the bear poked its muzzle into my sternum and down around my belly. I could feel the air coursing in and out of its nostrils. And then I felt its rough tongue licking my exposed stomach. The enormous mound that used to be my tight tummy was slick with the bear’s saliva. It chewed on the hem of my shirt squeezing out the excess fluid into its mouth and then proceeded up to my breasts, around my neck and finally licked my chin and mouth until every drop of breast milk was erased from my body.
To my left, I could see Greg holding his bleeding wrist and watching my impromptu bath. He seemed to be torn between running and staying to bargain further with the bear.
The bear reared up and stood on its hind legs. It spoke to Greg.
“This woman’s milk is good. Very good. Come into the forest and we will strike a new bargain.”
For a split second, Greg looked at the bear nonplussed, but he regained his composure and the nervous smirk on his face vanished under a wide toothy grin. “Yes, a new bargain. We can certainly make a new deal. That will make us all very happy.”
The bear and Greg walked side-by-side through the tall grass and disappeared into the dark reaches of the forest.
I laid there for a moment more and then tried to roll over to push myself into some sort of sitting position.
Out of the forest, the second bear appeared. Lying on the ground, I could see it was slightly smaller than the first. It didn’t look me in the eye. Instead, it took the cuff of my pants into its mouth and started dragging me back to the forest. At first, I tried to fight, but all of my energy was gone and I succumbed to the bear’s tugging.
We had only passed three trees when my butt caught on an exposed tree root sticking up out of the ground. The bear gave my leg a sharp tug, pulling me over and scraping my lower back against the sharp edges of the root.
I wanted to scream at the pain, but all that came out was a soft groan. I looked over to the left and saw two red eyes staring at me, like two delicate embers, glowing amongst the denseness of trees. The bear stopped dragging me and turned toward the eyes. It gave a snort.
“You can come out now. The man is gone. We’ve got the mother and the baby, both.”
From a small clump of bushes a small bear with fiery eyes emerged. It blinked and looked at the other bear.
“I almost fell asleep,” the small bear said.
“Don’t worry. We’re heading back now.”
The small bear looked back at me with those red eyes.
“Is my brother inside of her?”
“Yes, he’s almost ready to be born.”
My stomach pinched and turned over. Suddenly, I could feel the large furry body curled up, kicking, ready to be woken up with my contractions. I could feel its claws ready to bore a hole out of my womb, wetting my insides with embryonic fluid and blood. So much blood…
I screamed until my throat was raw and instantly began coughing.
“I wouldn’t make too much noise if I were you,” said the larger of the two bears when I ran out of breath. “You’re going to need all your strength.”
From off in the distance, I heard a man yelling and then shrieking. His final yell was cut short, followed by the roaring of the large bear.
“Everything’s going to be alright now, isn’t it Mom?”
And as she exposed her long shiny claws to clean them with her large mouth, I heard her whisper, “Yes, everything is going to be just right.”
