And crawling on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space. And meaning.

(I used to watch Rocky Horror with my sister, religiously. Bless my mom, who has endured many glass shattering harmonies and truly hideous costumes)

This was written earlier this year. I recently re-found it while rifling through some far less important memories.

A shower beer is a glorious thing.

Most people I meet who agree with this statement will claim to have invented the shower beer.

This is a foolish statement.

It’s like saying that you came up with toasted bread, or butter on popcorn, or putting the layer of cream cheese icing through the centre of carrot cake - not just on the outside (and to whomever that actually was, we’re all still grateful).

I’m having a shower beer because I just cycled home from hip hop class and arrived back home sweaty in the way that can only be by achieved dancing wildly then immediately donning ten layers against being battered by the snow on the way home.

I was at hip hop class to keep my mind off things.

I’m trying to keep my mind off things because my sister’s baby died inside her this morning and even if I get on a plane right now, I won’t make it in time for the really hard part. Somehow I would rather not be drifting through the sky at 35,000ft and uncontactable for that.

My sister hasn’t had a shower beer in years, she’s been sober since baby-one was the tiniest bean; a soon-to-be bun. Baby-one is nearly six now, babies two and three are a week away from four. Baby-four was a surprise; but not an unwelcome one. But baby-four decided a couple of weeks ago that perhaps it wasn’t worth the trouble after all and no one for sure knew why; baby-four just stopped growing one day. Baby-four tried to shift the burden of choice onto my sister; or rather the white coats (who told her that baby-four would either be severely disabled or die within the next few weeks) did. I suppose they have enough crappy/difficult/life changing decisions to make in a day - but that doesn’t mean that anyone should have to make a decision of that gravitas. My sister is no sign-carrying pro-lifer, but she was also in the third trimester. At this stage it’s less about calling Jane to scrape out some pumpkin seeds and more about actually scooping out a nearly realised huming-bean (thank you to six year me for that superb mis-pronunciation; somehow I’ll leave it here). My sister had by now been watching the tiny huming-bean on all those scans with the cold blue goo and the white coats and wasn’t able to make the choice that wouldn’t fit in her mind, so she made opted to let nature take its course, and to wait.

An impossible amount of scenarios go through my head - or at least I like to think that I’m able to produce an impossible amount of scenarios. The reality is that the only ones I can come up with are of my sister and her tiny, ill formed womb not being able to give birth. Because by now she’s been pumped with so many chemicals that the white coats say it’s far too dangerous to perform a c-section. The worst case scenario. Then I selfishly start to get anxiety over the thought of moving back to where I came from and becoming full-time carer for my nieces. This scares me more than I can say, as I’m pretty good aunty material and I love my nieces to bits; but I’m sure as shit not anyone’s mom. What sort of a life can I offer anyone, when I don’t even know what I’m doing with my own?

The cherry on top is that my sister has never given a ‘natural’ birth before, she’s been sliced and diced twice over for babies-one-two-and-three (two and three arrived around two minutes apart). Her huming-bean-making organs are so weirdly shaped that the white coats have consistently been surprised by her ability to fall pregnant in the first place, and so far they’ve not even entertained the notion that she might be able to push a body out of her body. Now is the time, they think, to shake things up a little and for her to give it a red hot go; either baby-four comes out dead or baby-four comes out and breathes one breath. It’s a nice little touch from nature ‘ah, you thought you’d been dealt the hardest card, but I’ve always got something a little more wretched up my sleeve’. The days go by and I don’t book a ticket back to Australia because I don’t want to be on a plane when shit is hitting the fan and the fan is spraying it everywhere. Baby-four gives up the ghost. My sister is in the hospital and they’re feeding her meds to start the birthing process. But my sister’s body doesn’t want to start the birthing process; it’s not even remotely interested. My sister’s brain is screaming at her body that it is the most useless sack of organs crawling on the planet. In protest her body pops the water balloon preserving the little dead foetus but refuses to go further - even on a doubled dose of meds. The white coats change their mind, as now there’s no more time left to wait in. She’s fasting for a last-resort-last-minute c-section now.

My friend once told me that when she had her c-section she saw everything reflected in the lights; by everything she was talking about the masked scrubs scooping her organs into a bucket while they fossicked around for her twins (yes, there are twins everywhere, must be something in the water). She told me that another friend had told her not to look at the lights, but knowing that, it was all she could do - watching as they tipped the bucket and poured her guts back in again, jiggling them loosely back into place like shaking a bowl of jelly to see if it’s set yet.

All I can think is that I should have got on a damn plane. It’s not my baby, but I feel gutted. My mom sends me videos of my nieces, who are waiting at home with her. They have no comprehension of the life-risking procedure happening as they have French toast for breakfast and pancakes for lunch. They know that their mom isn’t coming home with a little sister, but they have no idea that there’s a significant chance that mom won’t come home at all. I spend most of the day intermittently wasting away, half watching Netflix and sobbing into any pillow that will take it. I’m not sure if they’re sad tears or angry tears. I think they’re both. I’m mad at this happening to my sister, I’m mad that I don’t have the money to drop everything and come and see her. I’m furious that even though my mom sends me points to buy flights with that I still have to weigh up how many hours I can afford to take off work, I hate my job for that and outwardly curse the hospitality industry and culture, once again. Having no idea what someone needs or wants dictates uncertainty. Of course it’s simple to assume that my sister wants the whole thing to be over and done with, but does she wish it never happened? Baby-four was another little girl - were they hoping for a little boy? Will this be the last chance? Does she even like baby-daddy anymore? In her darkest moment my sister blamed herself for being greedy and wanting too many children. How many children is too many children? What is the correct amount of children? Does it depend on where they come from and how much their parents have or haven’t, or who they might become and what they might create?It starts to enter dicey territory.

My sister named her body useless for neither being able to carry a baby to term, nor get rid of a dead parasite (her words, not mine) when in the end - when she was sliced and diced for a third time - they discovered nothing wrong with the little girl. She was, essentially, perfect yet tiny - crammed into a section of a unicornuate uterus (I did not make that term up, and no, it doesn’t have involve rainbows) and grew until she could grow no more, suffocating at a mere 400grams.

Evidently my sister has a condition that affects just 0.04% of the population (according to the internet at least, as I’m no expert). The word ‘unicorn-ate’ is not lazily referencing the last meal of a mythical one horned beast, it is instead used to describe the peculiar shape of a uterus that is in fact only half of a uterus -the other half having been reabsorbed into the body in question- and that has one fallopian tube (not two) and that tube may or may not be functioning. Well at least that’s as much as my shrunken, champagne-addled brain understands. Long story short, it’s difficult enough to get pregnant with this condition, let alone pregnant without complications, let alone pregnant with twins (because there simply is not enough room for them to grow) let alone pregnant for a third time. She’s a three trick pony; but the last act glitched.

I make it to Adelaide on a hot evening some two weeks after the fact. Received by my mom and her troop carrier which generally carries her two dogs, dangling New Orleans beads from the rear-view mirror and a little too much road rage (and, knowing mom, perhaps some rocks and string for good measure). I’ve been stopped for an extra 30 minutes by customs, who got (really) peeved at me for saying sarcastically ‘what, do I look suspicious?’ when he pulled me to one side for a random 10 questions. He apologises for the making me empty every. little. dusty. item. out of my bags but also reprimands me - ‘with comments like that, what do you expect?’. Bandaids are accused of being too elderly, a French phrase book leafed cover to cover with a raised eyebrow and a ‘whadda ya use this for then?’. The tiny sewing kit I’ve carried around in a tobacco tin for years disappointedly lacked the green leaf it should have been hiding (which it did - years ago - when my brother found it in a car wreck he’d bought from god knows). An empty packet of pain killers is obviously something else entirely and needs to be shaken vigorously. In reality my suspicious bag held some poorly thought out clothes, a silly expensive broken kettle of my partner’s (for my brother to weld back together), many Moomin troll games for my nieces and ok - you got me - slightly too much wine. By the time the last part was discovered I had rambled until the grumpy customs man was visibly bored by my blathering and frustrated by my presence, telling me to leave and next time report all the damn alcohol. I steam in the Troopy while mom gets stroppy at the city drivers for being too slow (and then five minutes later replicates their manoeuvres to perfection) and we make our way back to the family farm, a drive which these days can take two hours.

It’s too late in the evening to see anyone but mom and a gin and tonic, too late to hear anything except tired stories overridden by an even more exhausted ceiling fan. Regardless of the lack of sleep, my mom is in great shape for someone who has been acting as emotional support, babysitter and private chef for three confused children. In the morning I hugged my nieces, and my sister. I was beyond relieved to be able to do that. This isn’t really my story, and I hope she doesn’t mind me telling it. She detests stories told in the present tense - let around ones that jump from one to another like toddlers on a trampoline, occasionally elbowing someone in the face - so I doubt she'd care to read it.

I wrote this because it filled my head until there was no room for anything else and I had to put it somewhere else to let some other thoughts in.

There’s nothing quite like thinking that you might wake up one sibling less.

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