From the Field

J. D. Johnson Approximately 5552 words
852 CR 855
Collinsville, AL 35961
jdad111@yahoo.com



From the Field

Spiking pangs shot up the back of Sarah's legs as her feet hit the concrete floor. The pain echoed throughout her body, gathering in her head, and then pressed against her temples as she smiled. Every muscle screamed. Her entire body had lost its "youthful appearance" during the past eight months of her pregnancy, but she didn't care. She worried that its "youthfulness" would not return for at least 4 to 6 weeks after the baby's birth, and that several more months of exercise would be needed. Then she smiled and chased those fears into the shadows of her thoughts. That was where she left it, yet it resurfaced from time to time like a worrisome gnat.
Sarah and Michael had attempted to have a child three times before. During those pregnancies, she endured the last few weeks of each attempt, hurting from head to toe. The extra twenty pounds of the baby and embryonic fluid pulled at every muscle in her body. Her chores around the farm became backbreaking torture, yet she endured them with a hopeful grin and a cheerful hum.
She pushed away the dark nightmares that shadowed those fleeting moments from her past and the dread that emerged from her hopes for success. She would have abandoned this place and Michael too long ago if no hope had lived within her. Yet it lived and flourished deep within her soul.
****

Michael couldn't sit still today because the Birthing Capsule was scheduled to arrive. His impatience only chipped away at Sarah's nerves, so she sent him to the fields. He always worked through impatience, anger, or worry in those fields.
She reached for a match, struck it against the rough-sawn bedpost, and lit her cigarette. Once her lungs were filled with smoke, the burning inside her entire respiratory system subsided. She had already smoked her allotment for this hour. The medication inside the cigarettes would not affect her nerves. However, inhaling, then taking a brief pause to let out a slow stream of smoke, helped. It calmed her as she watched it settle into a cloud that rapidly dwindled away.
Sarah had been living from one extreme mood to the next for the past several months. Day by day, her perspective swung like a pendulum from one extreme to the other on every issue discussed between her and Michael. So, they seemed to fight constantly. However, she remained steadfast on one subject: the place where they lived. She hated the agricultural claim on which they lived. She despised it!
Their existence seemed so distant from civilization that she felt current news was studied in public schools before it got to them. They were far from doctors and hospitals. She shivered with fear every time her mind grasped the vast, uninhabited wilderness between her and civilization's only domed city on Earth. Every time Sarah saw her rounded belly in the mirror, her heart swelled with love. Then she remembered their first two attempts.
Of course, Sarah knew Michael had chosen to be a farmer from their conversation on the day they met. He had been studying for his Agri-license test when they met. They spent six years at the same university and then bumped into each other two weeks after graduation. He was gallant enough to pay for her lunch when she had left her purse behind that day. That was the part of him she fell for at first. She smiled, thinking that his dishwater curls, bronzed flesh, and broad shoulders didn't hurt matters.
She shook her head, thinking she needed to get her mind off all those tragic events in their lives. So, she lifted the birthing capsule's operations manual from the table where she had laid it the night before and read aloud, "The filtration system will remove sub-micron particles and even fumes such as formaldehyde from the air before circulating through the living chamber. Ninety-nine percent of all histamine-carrying bodies will be eliminated or neutralized upon contact with the antihistamine membrane."
Her excessive sensitivity to pollen levels in the frontier made this capsule necessary. Of course, it would be essential for seventy-five percent of the world's population today. This hypersensitivity came from decades of living in domed cities, where the air was filtered and recirculated, "Fresh from the can," as she used to say.
Sarah continued reading, "In isolated farm areas where medical assistance may not be readily accessible, the living chamber protects newborn babies from complications due to allergic reactions during those critical first few days and even weeks of their lives."
"A Living chamber? Really?" It was a cage, twelve by twelve by seven feet tall, which she and her child would occupy for the first three to six months of her baby's life. All because her baby's father was a farmer. That meant they had to live in the wilderness rather than the histamine-free atmosphere of a domed city. There were too many plants in "nature" for Sarah's frail body to battle. Too many aggressive poison-spewing "vegetables" armed by evolution to protect themselves from the murderous beasts, harvesting them for food, like Michael, her husband. Of course, their poison had no effect on him.
The medicated cigarettes eased her pain, coating her lungs with a thick layer of antihistamine and anti-inflammatory drugs. Those drugs also kept the irritants out of her system so her body wouldn't explode with a rash and swell until her throat closed off.
She once saw it happen to an eight-year-old child. It happened at the Crossroads store. The child's family came into the wilderness to enjoy nature's beauty. They had never smoked. No one in the city smoked. They didn't need it. They didn't require the constant stream of healing drugs permeating the cigarette smoke. Besides, they went to Med-Clinics if they needed medication in the city. People treated ailments without physicians in the wilderness, so many chose medicated cigarettes that no longer contained tar and nicotine. Instead, the smoke from the new cigarettes was permeated with medications.
Michael tried to blow smoke from one of Sarah's cigarettes down the boy's throat as he lay on the tile floor, but it was too late for the silent, motionless child. His airways had collapsed, and he became cyanotic within minutes. His tiny, limp body draped over his father's arms as the man ran from the store, jumped into his shuttle, and sped away toward the city from which they came. They never heard what had happened to him, but Sarah knew because only the hospital was too far from their wilderness.
Sarah wondered if her child would suffer this malady as she caressed the arch of her belly. She cringed, thinking of her baby choking on the poisoned air, the vegetation imbued into the atmosphere of this venomous wilderness. Would he live from one cigarette to the next, catapulting from bed in the middle of the night, gasping for air, then grabbing a match or a lighter? Had she struggled and endured only to watch someone so close to her heart suffer or die?
#
Several droplets of sweat trickled into Michael's eyes. He swiped his arm across his forehead, but rubbing sweat into sweat only made more droplets dribble into his burning eyes. Michael dropped the hoe and crossed the furrowed soil to where his shirt hung from a branch. He wiped the sweat away, wrapping the garment like a bandana around his head. Michael lifted a dangling sleeve from in front of his eyes, then tucked it back into the bandana, where it draped over his ear. Then he reached for the canteen in the cab of his shuttle cart and dribbled water over his scalp, wetting his shirt until the excess ran down his sunburned shoulders. The chilling relief shot down his spine like an electrical current, issuing a smile of relief across his face.
The weather program had been set for a change tonight. Michael ordered a reduction in ultraviolet rays from the Reflector Satellite for the remainder of the week. Rain would form as air cooled, and moisture would condense from the atmosphere into water droplets, which would then fall from the sky. So that he could help Sarah set up the capsule. He wanted to lighten Sarah's mood by spending some time with her. He thought her mood might improve if they worked together to create a more family-like environment. Michael found himself searching for ways to please Sarah these days, but mostly without success.
Michael looked out over the tundra of plowed dirt stretching across two horizons and breathed deeply. The scent of freshly turned Earth wafted through the pollen, coating Michael's nostrils. He dwelled inside that moment as his mind fed on the aroma. It might have only been his imagination since pollen and dust had deadened his sense of smell long ago. He hoped not. That smell of Earth was one of the things that brought him out here in the first place. He loved this wilderness, so far away from the antiseptic world humanity created for itself.
Michael had hoped that dwelling on pleasure-filled memories might crowd out his fears about his soon-to-be-born child or the other painful possibilities. Maybe it was just anxiety, but he feared his nightmares might come true. Michael had known the dangers and savagery of the world they chose to live in. He had decided to leave if this attempt failed, though. Because Michael was determined that this child would survive, for Sarah's sake—and his own. However, he also wanted to stay where they felt comfortable and at home.
He also hoped for a child who wanted to be attached to his shirttail. Echoing his naive wonderment every time, he scanned the fields or the forest or listened for a dove's "coo" or a squirrel's chatter. He dreamed of sharing the dew-soaked grass oozing between their toes as they walked through the forest. In his mind, he saw a wonder-filled set of eyes jumping wide when a frog hopped toward them. Then he heard laughter and the screams of discovery as his mirrored image shattered beneath the child's palm, splashing. He strained to control his daydream and reminded himself, "not to dream." Sarah was right: "Dreams haunt you when your hopes are dashed."
"Michael." Michael's hip vibrated. Sarah called to him from the other end of the transmission over their com-link. "Michael."
Michael drew the Telecom from his hip, flipped it open, and held it to his ear. "Sarah? Is everything all right?"
"Yes, Michael, I'm okay. The capsule is here. The cargo pod just left. I'm glad you had them send someone to unload this thing. It's humongous. Are you coming home now?" Sarah asked.
"Just one more chore. I'm swinging by field one-two-five and making a few observations before coming home, but that won't take long. See you in about an hour. Don't try to do anything until I get there. That thing's too heavy for you to lift." Michael felt he had to constantly remind Sarah of her delicate condition.
"Okay. An hour, but don't lose track of time out there. I'm anxious." Sarah answered.
Since the day Michael was assigned project one-two-five, he had disappeared for several hours each afternoon. Then, in the evening, he returned with a pocket full of voice recordings, and Sarah transcribed them for him. However, on this day, he had more important business at home. "Don't worry. I'm anxious, too."
#
Field number one-two-five was a half-acre plot. Michael thought the plants presented nothing special to look at as he surveyed them. Still, he knew their origin, which was remarkable. Michael remembered learning about the exploration vessel that the Science Division sent into the deepest part of our solar system. He recalled the day Doctor Jamison told him about their most significant discovery.
They were dormant, "in hibernation," packed tightly in the fossilized sediment of a giant asteroid orbiting Uranus. Those tiny seeds survived the death of a mysterious ancient world. Michael wished they had given him more information about what to look for and what they wanted him to determine. However, they probably knew nothing and expected him to learn as much as possible about these alien seeds.
Not much had happened since the planting. The sprouts were about four feet tall, with large, flat leaves that were waxy on one side and fuzzy on the other. Their root system was like that of any other plant found in the fields. The two translucent pouches growing side by side near the top of the plant seemed odd but not unheard of on Earth. They were not dissimilar to insectivorous plants found in parts of old California. However, these pouches were more significant than those found on any of the pitcher plants Michael studied.
The dicots found on Earth captured and digested small insects to supplement their nutritional needs. The soil they normally grew in was nitrogen-poor and acidic, like the soil Michael struggled with daily in this wilderness. That was one reason they chose Michael for this experiment. They needed his poor soil, and he needed their money because that soil had lost too much of its vigor. However, he found that the nutrients returned to the soil after growing these plants during the first season.
"Not much change today." Michael pulled a ruler from his back pocket and measured one of the pouches as he spoke into his headset microphone. "The pouches have not grown since Tuesday of last week, so I think it is safe to say that they have matured at twenty-four inches in height and thirty inches in diameter. Wherever these plants originated, there must have been enormous insects to feed on. At least, larger insects or other living creatures than their counterparts here on Earth are captured." Michael backed away and leaned against the front of his shuttle cart as he sketched the plant with its mature pouches.
A high-pitched chatter aroused Michael's attention from his drawing. A squirrel braved the field from his sanctuary in an adjacent wooded area. The squirrel investigated his activity in the field and probably thought Michael had something edible to share. Cotton-Top was one of Michael's favorite pastimes in field one-two-five. Michael usually fed Cotton-Top whenever he visited this field. A tinge of grey and white had mottled Cotton-Top's fur atop his head. Michael often fed Cotton-Top while he ate his lunch and made notes on the plants' progress. "Sorry, boy. I don't have anything for you today."
Cotton-Top turned and scurried back down the row of plants toward the woods. However, before Cotton-Top reached the end of the row, Michael heard a frantic squealing as if something were scaring Cotton-Top. Then, a squeal of pain informed Michael that Cotton-Top was hurt. Michael dropped his notebook on the hood of his shuttle cart and ran to investigate.
As Michael neared the end of the row, he found Cotton-Top scrambling up the side of one of the plants. At the base of that plant, a rattlesnake stretched its body up the stalk. Michael saw blood on Cotton-Top's back, so he knew the battle was already over, and it was only a matter of time before the snake had his meal. Cotton-Top made it to the top of the plant and clutched one of the broad leaves above the pair of pouches. Only a few minutes passed before the squirrel quivered, went stiff, and then dropped into the pouch of the plant below. Michael noted in his recorder: "Cotton-Top fell into the sack on the left side of the plant, as viewed from the northern end of the field."
Life was savage in the wilderness. Sarah had said it best, "This damn desolate place kills everything and everyone who loves it, so why do you want to stay, Michael?"
Michael winced at the memory of Sarah's declaration, then flipped the switch back to the 'record' setting on his recorder. "My old friend, Cotton-Top, was killed by a rattler as I watched, Sarah." Michael kicked dirt at the snake, and it retreated to a safe place. "As Cotton-Top died, he fell into the westerly pouch on plant number sixteen." He started to reach for Cotton-Top's remains but stopped. "I would retrieve him and give him a decent burial. However, if I leave him, we can include him in the record of our experiment. I would like you to do that, please." Michael's voice deepened into a more business-like tone, "I would like his name entered into the report upon its final publication. As I return to the fields daily, I'll check for signs of decomposition. Since I have found no signs of acidic secretions yet, this event may provide us with the perfect opportunity to observe the results of a subject's entrapment in the pouch. And at the same time, we can give my little friend a bit of immortality."
Michael decided it was time to go home. Sarah awaited him, and after a long, disappointing day, he yearned to see her.
#
The capsule went together without any issues. With only a slight push or a tug, everything snapped into place, and Michael tightened the pieces down with the supplied tools. One problem arose when Sarah realized her bed was too large to fit through the door. Sarah refused to sleep on the manufacturer's twin-size cot and proclaimed, "I won't do it. I don't even have sheets to fit that worthless excuse for a bed. You send this whole mess back right now. Right-this-instant!"
Sarah's glare sliced through Michael as she glanced over her shoulder and stomped away. She left Michael with a gaping hole where his lips once closed and an argument dangling, unheard, on the tip of his tongue. She stewed for a minute, then Michael apologized for being a man and asked her to "please" let him and the capsule remain one more night. He simply hoped her mood would change before the next night came and went. He was determined to beg for just one more night if her anger remained, and then another.
#
After a few days, Sarah realized her bed had taken up space that she and the baby needed, so she allowed Michael to stay in the house and placed the smaller bed in the capsule. That was a good sign for Michael because the programmed rains had ended; he had finished assembling the birthing capsule, and it was time for him to return to the fields. He also felt that finding the doors unlatched when he returned from work was preferable to not discovering them that way at all.
#
Michael's first day on the field was uneventful, except for field number thirty-three. It flooded while he was in the proverbial doghouse, so he reworked the dike system. He became covered in slimy, fishy mud during the process. Sarah usually made him hose off in the front yard before she let him in the house, and she complained the entire time. So today, Michael found a pond with clean water to bathe in. Besides, it was a sweltering day, and he enjoyed the refreshing swim.
#
After his bath and cooling swim, Michael needed to find a breeze to help dry himself. Sarah scolded him for using his shirt to dry off, as it took her hours to remove the mud stains. So, he felt it best to dry off in a stiff breeze instead.
The shuttle cart's bucket lifted to a point just over the tops of the trees, limiting Michael's range of vision. He raised himself to a seat on the bucket's rim, above the tops of the trees, where he searched nearby ponds for one with semi-clear water. He hoped the water would be clear enough to wash the smelly mud from his body and out of his clothes. His muddy hands coated his binoculars with slime, so he used the sack that held his lunch to wipe away the slippery stuff. The sandwich fell from the bag, and he watched it fall to the forest floor below. For some reason, this triggered a memory of Cotton-Top. He usually ate his lunch in field one-two-five and used the crust from his sandwich to coax Cotton-Top out of the woods.
He focused his binoculars, examining field one-two-five, then zoomed in on plant number sixteen. One of the pouches swelled, wiggling like another small animal had met the same fate as Cotton-Top but lived and sought escape. As he watched, the bottom of the pouch broke open, and its contents spilled into the mud below. He focused his binoculars on a small, squirming, goo-covered membrane protruding from the sludge. Slime rolled down the balloon-like surface as a shadow inside pushed and stretched against it. Whatever had found itself inside the pouch struggled for its freedom. One side of the membrane jutted upward, then fell away to expose an animal's head rising above the muck. It resembled Cotton-Top's head.
Michael focused his binoculars, squinting to make sure. He lowered the bucket to the ground, jumped into the driver's seat of the shuttle cart, and raced toward field one-two-five.
When Michael arrived, he went straight to plant sixteen, and Cotton-Top sat at the plant's base, licking himself clean. Cotton-Top moved in groggy jerks like a newborn, but he lurched for the woods when he noticed Michael. Michael scooped him into a sample sack and secured it at the top. "Hey, little buddy. How did you survive that snakebite? Hmmm, maybe I was wrong about these pouches. I guess they're not digestive vessels at all. Maybe they have some medicinal value for animals trapped inside, but I'll let the brains in the lab solve that puzzle."
With its wiggling contents, Michael tucked the top of the sample sack into his belt, then leaned over for a closer inspection of the plant. "I'll need samples of this membrane and fluid," he said as he lifted a piece of the amniotic-like goo that covered Cotton-Top when he dropped from the pouch. "I'd better make some notes on things the way they initially appear to me for the guys back in the lab."
Michael flicked away a crust of mud on his belt, flipping the toggle to the record setting. Then he placed his headset on with his other hand. "I've just found my good friend Cotton-Top alive and well, Sarah. He seems to have been rejuvenated by the plant while inside the pouch. Refer to my last entry. You will find that he fell into the Easterly pouch on plant number sixteen." Michael froze in bewildered silence. What he said sounded wrong, like a tickle of Deja Vu or a perceived movement inside shadows, and it told him something was out of place. What was it? What was wrong with this scene?
Michael stood in a frozen silence until he determined what didn't fit. He counted the plants in the row and ended with plant number sixteen. Michael opened the sack and lifted Cotton-Top by the scruff of his neck. The squirrel was groggy, but it was Cotton-Top. Michael recognized his fluffy, white, mottled tuft atop its head, and there were two bite marks on the squirrel's back where the snake had struck.
He examined the pouches again. A syrupy liquid dripped from the ruptured sack's jagged edges while the other sagged at the bottom. Michael lifted the undamaged pouch, its base resting in his palm. "The westerly pouch seems. . ." Michael froze, then thought, "That was it—the 'westerly' pouch."
Michael gently lowered the pouch to its original position and then rewound his recording to a previous set of notes made on field one-two-five and listened, "... as he died, he fell into the westerly pouch on plant number sixteen."
It was the westerly pouch where Cotton-Top landed. Michael used his mud-crusted fingers and spread the top of the "westerly" sack open. Inside, he found several half-digested bones and a small skull with one hair still clinging to its cap—one cotton-white hair. "But if this is Cotton-Top, who are you, little buddy?" he asked the squirrel as it squirmed inside the sack that dangled from his belt.
"Michael, " Michael's Telecom buzzed, and he snapped it up. "Sarah. You won't believe this…"
"Michael! I need you! "
"Sarah? What's wrong? "
"It's happening again. Please come now! Please! Hurry!"
Michael ran to the shuttle cart, screaming into his Tele the entire way, "I'm coming! I'll be there, Sarah—hold on!"
Michael smashed his fist into the shuttle cart's dashboard, let out a burst of frustration, and willed the shuttle to accelerate, but he knew the governor controlled the speed. "Damn it! Why didn't I disconnect that thing when I had the chance? Sarah, hang on!" he screamed into the Telecom that sat in the seat beside him.
#
Michael jumped out of the moving shuttle cart and tumbled to a stop in front of the house as the shuttle smashed into the barn. He ignored his injuries, slammed his shoulder into the door, then burst through. "Sarah!" He ran into the living room to see the Birthing Capsule empty, and fear roiled in his stomach. Then he ran into the bedroom, where Sarah lay unconscious on the bed. Where the sheets clung to her body, the color of her flesh showed through, and where her flesh had blanched into the whiteness of the cotton sheet.
Michael fell to his knees, reached for her arm, and checked her pulse. He watched closely as the sheets clinging to her body moved ever so slightly, indicating each shallow breath. Michael had seen this before, and she recovered within a week. Under the sheets, between Sarah's spread legs, he saw a lump. A bloodied, motionless lump in the sheets. Michael was afraid to look, but he did, and his soul drained away. Their newborn daughter lay lifeless under the sheets. He checked everything: pulse, breathing. He tried CPR for the longest time and finally resolved to do what he knew he had to do.
He had done it before and had to do it again before Sarah regained consciousness. He always spared her as much pain as possible, and this time, the same as last time, she would be unconscious for several more hours, which gave him time.
Michael used a clean washcloth from the bathroom to wipe Sarah's body clean of sweat and blotches of blood, which mottled her inner thighs. His movements were mechanical, cold, distant, and automated. His mind was filled only with numb, tangled thoughts. Nightmarish images swirled through jumbled flashes, slicing through his heart like the sharp edge of a surgeon's scalpel. He lifted the bloody sheet in a tangled mass, cradling the wad in one arm as he spread a clean sheet over Sarah's naked body with his free hand. Then Michael left the cottage, walking toward the crumpled shuttle cart in front of the toppled barn. He passed the shuttle, turned, and slowly approached the side of the Live Oak tree.
Michael's mind churned through the past two and a half years, stopping only to dwell on memories of Sarah and her first pregnancy. Her eyes danced with optimistic anticipation during those days. Her spirit glowed with optimism as she sang, worked, and danced barefoot throughout the house. She wore a smock smeared with dried clay from her pots and droppings from her paintbrush. Sarah had said she loved the feel of the clay against her flesh, its silky texture spreading between her palm and the top of her rounded belly. She seemed devoured by life, the splendor of the wilderness, and hope.
But those fleeting daydreams of hope gave way to the gnawing, hopeless pangs of loss inside his soul for the placid lump on the seat beside him. And when he awoke from his thoughts, he was nowhere near the Live Oak tree. He hovered in his shuttle cart over field number one-two-five. As he descended, he stepped out of the shuttle cart.
Michael feared the thoughts racing through his mind. His conscience told him these plants were unknown, so he had no idea what might happen. These were alien plants, and neither he nor anyone else knew what repercussions they might yield in what he was attempting to do. "Would the product be alien? Was Cotton-Top an alien? What sinister purpose might hide, skulking inside this unknown alien life-giving event?"
Cotton-Top squirmed as Michael lifted him from the sack by the scruff of his neck. His chatter was lively enough. He also exhibited the will to be free, natural, and vigorous. The squirrel squirmed more intently, and Michael felt a sudden pain in his arm when the animal's nails pierced his skin. He dropped Cotton-Top and watched as he ran toward the woods. Cotton-Top stopped before entering the woods, convulsing, regurgitating his stomach's contents into the mud. He sniffed the vomit and then disappeared into the wall of trees with a flick of his tail.
Michael's curiosity led him to the spot where Cotton-Top had thrown up. In the puddle of clear mucus, he saw several dozen seeds that looked exactly like the seeds he originally received from his college professor. "It's all an elaborate reproductive cycle! That's all. The plants use the replica to spread their seeds."
Michael squinted, peering through the shadows into the woods. He saw Cotton-Top, who sat on a limb with his tail held high, chattering with another squirrel. Then, the two squirrels bounced from limb to limb and played like any ordinary pair of squirrels. "It has to be harmless. Life can't be this cruel."
#
The warm suckling at Sarah's breast relieved her tension, and she felt a shiver of contentment crawl over her shoulder and then down her spine. Michael's presence just outside the Neoglass walls of the capsule reinforced that feeling. He told her how he found her drenched in sweat, unconscious, with a squirmy bundle between her legs. She passed out like that before, but Michael got there this time. He arrived on time, cleared the baby's airways, and placed Sarah, holding the baby, in the capsule.
Michael watched over them for days until she recovered. He used a set of gloves that reached through the plexiglass wall when feeding, changing, and burping the baby. Also, when he washed Sarah or spoon-fed her water and crushed vegetables.
Sarah fought him in the beginning. She struggled to reach for her baby. All she wanted was a glimpse, but Michael convinced her to wait. He convinced her that if the baby failed to live, her life would be easier, having not seen the baby.
She was glad she waited because the baby was perky, bright-eyed, and healthy. "She's perfect."
Michael knelt on the other side of the chamber's glass, tucking his shirt into his jeans as he prepared for the fields. He reached for the com-unit, knowing that Sarah would never know how close she and the baby came to death. He leaned on the 'Talk' button with a wide grin and spoke, "Hey, you two, your Oldman has to go out and earn us all a living. How is she doing this morning, Dear?"
"She's perfect!" Sarah said, raising her voice an octave over the coos and giggling.
Michael opened the pass-through slot and dropped a tape inside the Evac chamber. "I'll need you to transcribe this today if you can. Don't bother if you can't escape your 'motherly' duties. We have priorities, you know."
"I know." Sarah wrinkled her nose at the tiny face beneath her own. "We'll do our best, Daddy, won't we, Michelle?"
The air in the capsule smelled sweet and clean. Sarah thought she would have missed the cigarettes more than she did. The MedPage technician told her that her cravings would subside after a few days, and indeed, she hadn't wanted one since she entered the capsule. Her addiction dwindled during her two-week recuperation. Michael kept her groggy on painkillers and sedatives so that she slept through her withdrawals. Was it days or longer? Her memory failed her.
Michael walked out the door as Sarah hoisted Michelle up to her shoulder and patted her on the back. Sunlight streamed through the window, and Sarah saw the lush garden outside the door. "Oh, look, Michelle, it's our garden. Can you see all those pretty plants in our garden? We don't have to be afraid of those plants. They're some of the good ones. Those nasty old plants in the fields cause me pain and discomfort, not our lovely little garden. Do you see it?" Sarah stood Michelle in her lap and pointed her toward the open door. Michelle bounced and giggled until she belched and spat up.
"Oh, my goodness." Sarah grabbed the towel from its place on her shoulder and wiped at the vomit running down her leg. "What has your daddy been feeding you? Doesn't he know that anything with seeds in it isn't good for little darlings like you?"

The End