Passed this point, to get passed this point...
That's what she thought... get passed this...
Then Inez's life would be at rest...
She had imagined, a journey upon a sea of black...
Nothing where she imagined the shore to be...
The children she left without a care...without a life...
Sobbed within the darkness of the waves...
Lost as a child...
No Mother...she thought, never found...
No Father, never sought, just as lost...
She pondered the emptiness of her imagination as she held remnants...
Inez examines a young Puerto Rican woman showing scars...
The scars of a badly performed abortion evident...
Surrounded by the memories of children aborted...
Washing up on shores of living limbs...
Reaching out from the depth of misery and sorrow...
Inez awakens...
Perhaps, sixty years of age...
Home alone... the room is black and all she can hear is the dark of the night...
A home she purchased alone years before...
Using the wealth she gained as a doctor...
Performing abortions...
She had been married but Charlie, her husband, aptly died while they were still in medical school....
The house sat on ten acres of land surrounded by hundreds of acres of protected park land...
She lived alone as she had always with a daughter, Alma, a few pictures on the wall showed the girl was in her twenty's...
Inez's hand moved quickly across the page as she wrote her notes to recall...
The other hand held the probe of the stethoscope bell against her chest...
Catching the resonant beat of her heart...
The only light in the room was an old desk lamp...
Darkness surrounded her....
A thumping sound came from the basement...
Inez looked down the hall at the dark stairwell from where the noise came...
The noise continued as she stepped down to the basement...
Holding the bell shaped probe of the stethoscope to her heart...
She walked down the stairs approaching a thumping, dull wooden sound...
The sound of dull objects pounding on metal...
Down in the basement she turned on the light...
Revealing an expanse of priceless artwork...
Passing it all she walked to an open large, heavy wooden door at the back wall of the basement...
Musty air exhaled to escape and mingled with fresh air in the rest of the basement producing a queer smell...
She reached up into the darkness turning on the lamp that hung from an old mangled wire....
The noise continued as she approached the room at the back wall it was coming from...
Lining the rotted walls of the unkempt secret room were a series of old wooden file cabinets that bore a likeness of a the city morgue...
Row upon row of the dead were kept in coffin draws...
Rolled out when needed like files in a filing cabinet...
It sounded as if an animal was in the cabinets and were daringly trouncing about inside...
An animal?
What kind of an animal would get into this room? Rats!
She had rats!
Damn it! she thought...
The pounding continued until it came to settle within one of the draws...
She listened carefully trying to pinpoint the source...
Sounding as if the animal were running from draw to draw and settling...
The arrhythmic pounding seemed to be coalescing into the heartbeats of many coming from a single draw...
Inez stood before the draw listening to the slow, muffled drumming...
Holding the stethoscope probe to it and listening carefully...
As she had done so often when listening for the heartbeat of a child in it's mothers womb before...
Hearing the soft heartbeat thump, thump, thump...
An animal?
She ran into the main basement room, found a hammer and a screwdriver...
Inhaled a deep breath and counted down as she pulled the draw back quickly...
The fetus folded, lay still, dead and moist: Aborted... one would assume...
Threw herself away from the draw, ran out of the room and locked it...
Stepping back from the door, her eyes fixed on it's stillness...
Pressed the stethoscope bell against her chest, listening to her heart...
Haunted...
Standing at the wooden door of her basement...
Listening, as the draws alone opened one by one...
Listening as the sound of whimpering children's hearts murmuring filled the room...
She imagined the death of her husband the moment she let him go to find his end and her freedom...
Raising herself from his death as she let him die...
The door resonating, pounding the door from the other side of their existence...
"You have hurt us..." they said.
"And we will hurt you..."
"Alma, go see your mother..."
"How would she know...?"
"Your dreams are the result of your own life... there is so much to learn from her..."
"But I love you so much..."
"Do you Michael?"
"I do... That love no matter how real or sincere doesn't result in the relationship we have..."
"There are so many assumptions to consider..."
"Don't you recall mother?"
"I don't..."
"You called me..."
"I recall falling asleep in the rocking chair, having a terrible nightmare..."
"Really? Why?"
"Mom, you always wanted me to have a child...
A husband...
Listen to the order you prefer,
That's not what I wanted... do you recall?"
"I don't..."
"Mother, are you alright?...
Mother, this isn't the life I wanted, this is what you want...
You wanted us to marry and have a child...
I'm not even sure I even want to be married at all or marry Michael..."
"I wanted your life to be the life I wanted for myself when I was a little girl..."
"And now, this is the life you wanted?"
"No, I never had a life that I could grow from...I had to choose my life along the way...
No directive or guidance...No one was ever there for me... To accept the choices made for or left for me..."
"Which is the life you now want me to have with which to have my child...the life you imagined for yourself you wish for me without a say?"
"No Alma..."
"You already have chosen that existence for me..."
"There is so much joy in giving birth...to nurture....a man can never have what you can..."
"Mother, I don't want that, I hope to have what I want."
"But you do..."
"I why would I want what you feel I should?"
"Don't you also wish for the child to have a life with a mother who wants the child as well?"
"No mother."
"But you will Alma..."
"Like you wanted me?
"Of course, love..."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes...you have doubts?"
"About you and my existence mother?"
"I had a dream, a nightmare of children hurt and in pain, they knew nothing else...
"They expected nothing..."
"They lived in that very moment..."
The love they needed was forever to be one of sorrow...
They stood about waiting...
Watching, knowing where the children were going and rising from the black ground...
And they could see nothing they would want of birth...
Imagine the life they were becoming a part of not being the end result of their birth...
They imagined more so but they couldn't turn back...
They couldn't turn back the life offered was one they couldn't turn down...
But live it as is best and worse they could imagine...
Nothing to fulfill, nothing to chose but accept death and fall where they must..."
"Do you understand what you are, Alma?
You are the child of a woman whose wrath is the scorn and hate of others...
You are the child born of a woman who blamed and aborted the children of others for her childless life...
Aborted the lives of others out of vengeance...
Realized she could steal another's to have her own and rid herself of a useless man...
Having a child is the joy of seeing it appear from the womb, the joy of watching that child grow up."
The child poured forth, its birth, its spirit now free of any restriction of any afterthought was lost...
As if to stretch and awaken from a deep sleep...
To rise from a sleep that was never complete...
The children, risen from their sleep angered to rise...
Risen to become anger from a sleep of hate
Alma calls from the room...
The sores erupt as births...
The emergence of a child born, from the body of its mother...
Blind from birth...
To be born like cancer, to be born from death...
These children are triggered to fruit by the very death of its mother...
I am a child of misery poured forth.
Looking in the mirror, Alma's puss filled sores cover the whole of her body...
Embodying the dead children, becoming a mass of ill-formed arms, legs, heads, eyes and mouths from the fetus' of the children she aborted...
Witnessing the army of ill formed children rise up from the open land around her...
A woman stands across the field watching...
A child speaks, the wraith, speaks as the the wraith form for the woman who watches from across the field, and was a patient of the doctors.
This child appears from the composite of aborted fetuses that embodies Alma... the children aborted are the victims of Inez who are the deceived minority patients, convinced to abort what they thought were deformed children, only to satisfy the animal within her that sought to restrict other minority women from having children... her anger ran deep...why should she not have a child.
Having killed her husband, we learn that Inez killed her husband believing his impotency kept her from having children....
But it was her that was sterile...
The anger drove her to open a practice in a depressed neighborhood where she performed abortion after abortion...
Killing the children she could never have...
She re-imagines the sensation of life within the mother's belly...
Quivering with anxiety dying in her hands...
While still within the body of the mother...
Alma, is a stolen child.
Alma knows now that she is not her mother's true child, but a child left and disposed, a replacement for her mother's twisted dreams.
Alma had been summoned by the ghosts of those whose suffering and death we're not allowed to live because of her mother's quest for sacrifice, a more suitable punishment for a vengeful woman, who cherished her daughter more than anything else in the world...
Alma, finally consumed by the dead children, consumed...
The mass undulates in the bed...
As her daughter calls as if from far away...
Inez runs off down the steps... She slips and gets hurt...
The house shutters, the floor shakes, the walls quiver in a giant wave...
The faces of children suddenly appear from the fabric of the wall...
As if they were pressing through from the other side...
She runs for the exit door...
Grabs the knob...
The little hands reach out and grab her, pulling her down...
She yanks at them, pulling the door off of it's hinges.
She falls back to the floor and looks out through the door, across the field...
An army of children appear, standing in line across, like land mines laid across a field.
Inez rushes the door and charges through the army of children...
She runs out onto the field where an army of angry of children, who slowly sink into the ground, dragging her with them...
The house weakens and is consumed by the Earth, then falls into the darkness...
Punishment for the divine...
Abortion
A cruel and scornful woman, is haunted and subjected to divine punishment, retribution and ultimately death, for the horrible things she did in her .
An older woman is haunted by the ghosts of the children she maliciously aborted when she first operated her practice in El Barrio. Seeking revenge, the ghosts have lured her only daughter, stolen from a woman she killed in surgery and adopted by her, to the house and turned her into one of them; an aborted life form. the doctor dies, taken away by the ghouls she brought into the world.
