| Chapter 4: | The Beginnings of Dys-Girl's Body |
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would have kept me sleeping longer than Snow White. I went into anaphylaxis. A time where pulse and breath disappear perhaps forever, but not for me. I was revived. Woke up days later with tubes and machines everywhere. A catheter flutters on the back of my hand, feeds me sweet nectar. Claret drips into blue veins. I am not the only one in this room. The others are masked, the others are asleep.
Punishments are visited upon us by monstrous pale creatures.
But I'm leaving out what's important. My daughter is born the night I'm slaughtered by the moving vehicle.
Rose fell. “Willa,18 Willa, can I call her Willa?”
“The name's already taken.”
“But I need it.”
“Okay, for a short while, but don't forget from whence it came.”
So, you know, her name is Willa and she's here.
Her name is worn and her nose is almost gone. I've slept with those letters wrapped in my arms. The sweet comfort of double “l's” lulls me. It's the least I could offer her, knowing what I do about what is to happen.
And me? I'm Rose.
vulnerability, vulnerable vA.lnerab'l, a. ad. late
L. vulnerabilis wounding,
f. vulnerabilis; (see vuln v.)
to wound, to be wounded “Having power to wound; wounding”
“That may be wounded; susceptible of receiving wounds or physical injury”
vuln
vuln vAln, v. Irreg. ad. L. vuln-erare, f. vulner-, vulnus wound.
trans. To wound. Obs.-1.
—“vuln” and “vulnerability”
Oxford English Dictionary (2001)