24/7 SERVICE
By Neel Anil Panicker
I was at the hospital when night duty nurse Harleen called out my name.
“Mrs Mehta!, you got a call,” she shrieked, her voice shrill and dictatorial.
She left the receiver uncovered. “It is a phone call from Mrs Reena!”
Boy or girl, she said.
With Harleen breathing down my neck, I didn’t feel like saying that this time it were quadruplets and that I couldn’t do anything about it. I said I would call back later as the doctors were on their rounds and that I needed to be back on my bed.
I hung up.
Harleen said, “Your mom-in-law seems to be a tad upset”.
Once during my last visit here she’d barged into the room only to overhear me promising mom-in-law that there would be ‘no more_anymore’.
How many do you have? she’d asked.
Including this, eleven, I’d answered, embarrassed.
Birthing babies year after year was something that was bound to happen considering Mark just couldn’t stop sticking his rod into me almost every single waking hour.
Great, she’d said. Did you know my husband was also like him?
I didn’t.
“Men will be men”, she said, adding, “but no more fucking around with life.”
©neelanilpanicker2017 #fiction #short story # 198 words
Written for FLASH FICTION FOR THE PURPOSEFULL PRACTITIONER CHALLENGE HOSTED BY
The challenge for Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner will open early Wednesday morning, March 1st. Allow the prompt to take you anywhere you want to go! (Limit your stories to 200 words.)
This challenge is open until 11:00 pm Friday night, March 10th, 2017.
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