Scans

Written by Edward Lee

"Ghosts are all around us. Look for them, and you will find them. "

— Ruskin Bond

In the library I see a woman photocopying ultrasound scans. At first, I am sure not sure what she is doing, though I can clearly see her take the scan out of a purple folder and place it on the screen of the photocopier, before closing it and moving across to the screen to input her instructions.

It is obvious that she is photocopying the scan – after my eyes recognise the black and white image, they then pass over the slight swell of her stomach, the glance more instinct than choice – and yet, it takes a few seconds for the obviousness of it to make sense in my thoughts; there is also a suggestion that I am not thinking of them correctly, that ‘ultrasound scans’ is not the correct terminology, but as to what it might be I do not know right at that moment, and this misnaming is, I believe, contributing to the delay of the realisation.

When the realisation does finally settle itself firmly across my thoughts, I feel a spike in my chest, one that speaks of a stab in my heart, though I could swear that it is in fact an inch or two to the left of my heart, or at least where I imagine it to be, vague memories of being in school and our teacher telling us to make a fist and hold it to our chest, our fist an approximate size of our beating hearts, followed by an even vaguer memory, though it is obviously more recent, that this comparison was in fact not true, even though we were being taught it in school; but is that not the way of many things we are taught to believe, how quickly – or so it seems – it is revealed, through the addition of some previously unknown knowledge, that this one indisputable fact is no longer true, be it the total number of planets in the solar system or the cause of infection in a wound.

Of course, seeing this woman with her ultrasound scan makes me think of our own, or, in truth, of the many. How many scans did we have? I cannot recall, though I would swear blind that there is not a moment of those months that I do not remember with a clarity sharper than reality. The first scan showing us the small form of our future child, the second scan to monitor the development, not strictly necessary, but wanted by the two of us due to the earlier miscarriages. And then a third one, when something was not right, and perhaps a fourth one to confirm what the third one had already confirmed but was being held somewhat at bay by magical thinking on both our parts. And then, and then no more. No more.

A ghost now. A ghost. If someone unborn can have a ghost; a foolish thought, for I have never believed in ghosts, or an afterlife, not even god, though I prayed to him when you began feeling that all too familiar pain – and tightening, you said, like your insides were in a slowly turning vise - and some blood began to appear.

But of course there was nothing but silence from the place I was wishing he might be, if he existed, just as there had been no sound when we had used our small ultrasound scanner – one with had bought online long before this baby was conceived – to detect the heartbeat, or, no, not quite silence, but a heavy hiss, loud with emptiness in the place where the heartbeat should have been.

But why not a ghost? Who is to say that at some distant date proof of such a thing is discovered, some recording made, some vision seen, a ghost witnessed by many, imperious to every explanation accept that it is real, this ghost before us exists? Wasn’t the world flat until it wasn’t? Wasn’t the earth the centre of the solar system until the sun claimed its rightful place? Wasn’t there once the possibility of dragons in places that mapmakers had never seen?

So, let there be a ghost, if it means that that child unborn exists somewhere other than just in our memories and the two infrasound scans that had so clearly shown him, his – yes, a boy, we had wanted to know, no matter the heartbreak we had experienced before, knowing the sex and then losing them, this human being being made all the more human – his body seeming to move even in the stillness of the printed scans, vibrant too, even in black and white. Let him be one more ghost to join the previous three ghosts – can it really be three times, three miscarriages before that fourth and last one, two girls and one boy? – though this one, this miscarriage, I believe it was stronger, for he lasted, no, not lasted, lived, he lived longer than his three almost siblings, his two almost sisters and one almost brother.

All ghosts indeed. Ghosts which haunted us, and haunt us still, even as we no longer share lives, becoming ghosts to each other even as we continued on living the life we were living, until you turned to me with something like a smile on your face, one of acceptance and said you couldn’t do it anymore and when I asked what you could not do anymore, you simply said everything, and we were done, our promises of forever no longer real, the strength of our love disproven, our first and forever home now a house for others; I imagine the ghost of our happiness – and we were happy for a while, happy even as that first miscarriage became two, then all three assaulting us, we were still happy – haunts its walls, just as I feel haunted by all that is gone, standing in this library momentary without any memory of entering, let alone why I entered, before I remember the sudden fall of rain, the sky seemingly opening itself wide, and I had rushed into the nearest open building, which happened to be this library, where a woman was photocopying a ultrasound scan, almost as though I was meant to see her, see those scans, though why that should be so I do not know.

I do not know.

About the Author:

Edward Lee's poetry, short stories, non-fiction and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, The Blue Nib and Poetry Wales.

He is currently working on a novel. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy. His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com

You can follow him on Twitter: @edwardleewriter