Tawna's head was throbbing, pain forcing its way through a fog of drunkenness and nausea. She wanted to pass out, to curl up and go to sleep so badly, but she knew she couldn't. Not yet.
She fumbled with the can of Red Dog, trying to open it. She could barely grip the ring to pull it, her fingers slipping off until she finally caught it. Her numbed hand made blurred trails. She finally got a fingernail under the ring and pulled it open (barely feeling the metal or the tearing of her fingernail to the quick), lifted it to her mouth, and guzzled half of it before she lurched forward and vomited violently, spewing across the coffee table. She waited for her stomach to calm down, then finished the beer.
Before tossing the can onto the pile, Tawna concentrated on the beer can, trying to focus her untethered mind on something, anything. The normally benign caricature of a red bulldog had become a devil's leering face, grinning mockingly.
Reaching into the case, she noted there were only four left in the box. Waves of dizziness and sickness washed over her again. Maybe she puked again, she wasn't quite sure. She reached for her cigarette, but it had already burned to the filter in the ashtray. Tawna reached for her pack, demolished a cigarette trying to fish it out, dropped another, finally procured an intact one, put it in her mouth, lit it. She puffed on it until half of it was ash, coughing, then she put in the ash tray.
Trying to stay awake, she popped some Mini-Thins, about six, and chased it with a glass of water. Tawna looked at the VCR clock, and had to stare at it for a bit before she could make sense of the green numbers: 3:07 p.m. She had about two and a half hours before Ray got home. She had to finish this by then. Her head throbbed so violently she was certain her head was visibly swelling and contracting, like a beating heart. She closed her eyes for a second, and saw flashes of orange light pulse behind her eyelids in sync with the pain.
Tawna was considering another beer when she felt a horrible cramp. She bent over almost double, and noticed her panties were bloody. She felt something turning over in her guts, and she knew it was time. She got up on legs she couldn't feel and could barely control. She started across the living room to the hall, navigating a nightmarish landscape of moving floors and walls, distorted distance and dulled sensation. In the hall, about a yard from the bathroom, she lost her balance.
Tawna sprawled and fell on the three-legged end table. Ray's baseball coaching trophy, Tawna's antique vase, and table all were crushed under her weight. Sharp pain shot through her back, the only thing that Tawna had clearly felt in hours. She pissed herself. Pinwheeling her arms, trying to make the floor stabilize and stay under her, she managed to get to her feet in about two minutes. She opened the bathroom door, staggered to the toilet, then sat down with enough force to knock the frog nick-knacks from the tank. She heard herself dripping into the water, and leaned over and puked in the tub. Partially digested caffeine pills and rancid beer stained the sky blue porcelain.
The woman screamed as she felt her insides tear and come out of her uterus. Blinding pain filled her vision with white, and she threw up all over herself. She didn't care. She felt an occlusion, and squeezed it out of her despite blinding agony. Jeremy's unformed baby fell out of her into the toilet. Her stomach cramped as she dry heaved, in unison. She almost passed out, but by biting her lip she was able to hold onto awareness. Placenta, blood and amniotic fluid gushed out of her. It sounded a lot like diarrhea.
She had done it. She laughed, or rather tried to... the sound resembled screaming sobs. Ray would never know. She would claim a stomach flu, and stay in bed for a few days. He never touched her anymore, anyway, unless he was drunk and angry. Her head was still pounding, so she dry-swallowed some generic ibuprofen from a bottle on the sink.
After five minutes, Tawna hadn't stopped bleeding. She stared at the dollar store clock across from her, above the clothes basket. Eight minutes, and still bleeding. She was getting dizzy, wanted to sleep.
Then, ten minutes.
Twenty minutes. Can't stay awake. But Ray will be home soon. Drip, drip.
Forty-eight minutes since the event. Tawna felt her throbbing stop. She closed her eyes.
Calm. No pain.
Darkness.