'Sticks and Stones' by Lynda McMahon

Pee on the stick, wait five minutes, bake for nine months, mature for eighteen years… 

Try again next month.  And… Running out of time. Pee on the stick. Get to twelve weeks. Celebrate! Thirteen weeks, all lost. From heartbeat to death in seven short days. Or long days. I measured out my life in months and weeks. Pee on the stick…

Stick the pee. Pee sticks? Pooh sticks! Which stick? Walking stick.

“Don’t pee on your stick, sweetheart!” 

Who are these people? I’m not old am I? I can’t be; surely time hasn’t gone so fast, has it? They’re telling me what to do as if I’m a child. They call me ‘love’ and ‘dear’, ‘darling’ and “sweetheart’. They can’t remember my name.. I can’t remember my name. I had one once, a long time ago. It might have been Claire or maybe Nancy. There was a time, I’m pretty sure, when I remembered everything.

Why don’t my children come and take me away from here? I’ve been here years. Or maybe weeks. I had lots of children. Didn’t I? I remember children. Babies. My babies.

Is it teatime yet? Breakfast? No, I’ve had breakfast. After I peed on the stick.  

“Next time!” you said. Next month, next year… No children and no you.  Just me, now, at the end of my days. Daze time. Mazed time. Out of time.

They’re coming for me, all smiles and encouragement. They’ll want me to do something. Something I don’t want to do. Bake a cake. Or dance. I hate dancing. Always have. I think.

“What day is it?” I ask that a lot. Apparently.

“It’s the day the babies come to visit us!” I’d forgotten. 

“Are my babies coming? Where are my babies? Please tell me when my babies are coming!”