Her head arched back as a bead of sweat teasingly snaked through the hair in front of her ear. The moist rythmic lapping continued to intrude upon her thoughts but then she relaxed into it ...only to surface again when the height of her need to finish surged.
‘Relax.’ Her thoughts drifted into the colour she could see with her eyes closed - a sea of red, waving, shimmering heat, dissolving any horizon.
Again the sound of lap, lap, lap.
The rhythm became windscreen wipers slapping the beat across the windsreen, as they dashed to the hospital. Rain weeping, driving, pelting down as they bent back, no umbrella’ed into the maternity ward. Lightning jagged across the sky. Thunder roared as the pain clenched again. It’s too early. It’s far too early.The mantra screamed on loop through her mind.
Drugs. Drips. Bed rest. Medicos serious as red blood didn’t stop. Danger! Emergency! Stop! STOP! Please stay!
The long awaited baby aborted before it had changed from a foetus.
Lap lap, the succulent sound of the paint brush obliterated the voice of the unsmiling doctor grave, “We can do no more. The bleeding…”
Brush brush brush the thoughts away. Back into the colour red. Dark, ruby, wine red.
Tears hovered unshed as she continued to paint away the pastels in a room built for a baby who would never eventuate.
The heat of another hot flush reminded her of a barren future.

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