DIARY OF A FETUS (from Sword of the Lord)

 

October 5: Today my life began. My parents do not know it yet. I am as small as the pollen of a flower, but it is I already. I will be a girl. I will have blonde hair and blue eyes. Nearly everything is settled already, even that I shall love flowers.

 

October 19: I have grown a little, but I am still to small to do anything myself. My mother does almost everything for me, though she still does not know she is carrying me under her heart. But, is it true that I am not yet a real person? That only my mother exists? I am a real person, just as a small

crumb of bread is still bread. My mother is, and I am.

 

October 23: My mouth is just now beginning to open. Just think—in a year or so Iʼll be laughing; and later Iʼll start to talk. My first word will be “Mama.”

 

October 25: Today my heart began to beat. It will beat softly for the rest of my life, never stopping; after many years it will tire, it will stop, and then I shall die.

 

November 2: I am growing continually. My arms and legs are taking shape but I must wait a long time before these tiny legs will raise me to my motherʼs arms; before these little arms will be able to conquer the earth and befriend people.

 

November 12: Tiny fingers are beginning to form on my hands. How small they are; one day I will stroke my motherʼs hair to my mouth and sheʼll say, “Oh, dirty.”

 

November 20: Only today the doctor told my mother that I am living here under her heart. How happy she must be Are you happy, Mother?

 

November 25: My mother and father are probably thinking about a name for me; and they donʼt even know that I am a little girl, so they are probably calling me “Andy.” But I want to be called Barbara. I am growing so big.

 

December 10: My hair is growing. It is as bright and shiny as the sun. I wonder what kind of hair my mother has?

 

December 13: I am almost able to see, though it is night around me. When mother brings me into the world, it will be full of sunshine and overflowing with flowers. I have never seen a flower you know, but more than anything I want to see my mother. How do you look, Mother?

 

December 24: I wonder if my mother hears the delicate beat of my heart? Some children are born with sickly hearts, and then the gentle fingers of the doctor perform miracles to make them healthy. But my heart is healthy. It beats so evenly: Thump-thump, thump-thump. You shall have a healthy daughter, Mother.

 

December 28: Today, my mother killed me.