Let Us Remember the Infant Albert
Twitter Fiction Festival Flash Fiction #5. Epitaph by @archman9. Fiction by Jennifer Wilson.
They said one had to go, that both wouldn’t make it, your momma died to, she just couldn’t take it.
“Ma’am, I’m very sorry,” I remember telling her. “There isn’t enough time.”
For a doctor, “I’m sorry” is shorthand for what you can’t say. Like the word “God” is shorthand for anything people can’t understand.
Really, there’s nothing of comfort for a woman who is carrying twins, and who can deliver only one. Like it was a race to the birth canal, and she had to pick a winner.
“You’ll have to choose,” I said. But she knew that.
I left the room to give her time. Left her in that room full of glass and sharp things.
Then she did choose.
“Oh, Lillian,” I sighed. I’d bought the stone myself. They hadn’t anyone else to look after them.
“What have you done?”
I put my hat back on, buttoned my coat.
“I’m sorry,” I said one more time, and turned to go.
Join me @WriterJenWilson Sunday Dec. 2 at 12pm-1pm EST (11 CST) and you’ll be featured on the Twitter Fiction Festival Page– four grave images per hour and you tweet the epitaphs. Use the #TwitterFiction hashtag. Let’s make stories together … and tweet the dead.
