And next you open your eyes to discover yourself in an empty hospital ward another among many propped among pillows another bed another hot night covers folded down to your waist oil lamp stammering on your bedside table and you have had an operation. Your chest burnthrobs and an extremely thin dressing covers an extensive wound the dressing sodden with blood. You search for a cord a bell a way to summon the nurse but there is only you bare walls no beds save your bed no sounds save those your body invents and the pain from the wound swims back and forth across the delicate surface of your cortex and you call out pause call out again nothing this doesn’t look good. Enough is enough you tell yourself enough is enough so you prepare to swing your legs over the side of your bed strike out in search of help but the burnthrob blackens when you attempt tensing your muscles so you sit very still and make yourself go away for a while. You try another shout make yourself go away for a while and when you return you appreciate the fact you will have to wait this one out contemplating the bloody dressing again looking away looking back the curiosity won’t leave you alone. Employing the greatest care you raise your right arm pincer a flap of the dressing all right you think you can do this you can do this lifting and peeling back peeling back a little more below the very thin dressing your ribcage is exposed. Your ribcage is exposed and among the bloodslosh you can see your own heart beating. Your skin is gone and you can see your own heart beating among the bloodslosh and you go away for a while and when you return you detect the secondary movement a trembling a small wet trembling skinless snout tiny skinless paws something wanting out of you something wanting air. Employing even greater care you raise your left arm bring it to the aid of your right fold back the dressing reach inside your chest cavity your ribs separating easily breastbone fractured for the occasion and push around your smooth lungs lift your heart from its nest beneath it the thing wanting to get out squirming and you set your heart on your belly and probing squeeze the small slippery trembling thing in your hands lift it free a blind writhing blind embryonic puppy skin stripped away purplepink muscle yellowish frog-egg fat blue vessel-webs this is what it is like for a man to give birth tiny mouth opening closing straining for air this is what it is like and you are a father now. You are a father and the notion is plentiful with pride accomplishment panic expectation you are a father now this is a lying-in hospital that’s where you are a lying-in hospital sans midwives nurses doctors you and your newborn because this is how it has always been because you birth alone cross from opening to opening alone and then a question gets to its feet at the back of your brain you lift your newborn higher with one hand part its hind legs with the other squint make out a purplepink organ comprised of two purplepink organs it’s a girlboy a boygirl a goybirl and you beam with well-being if your sister could only see you now if your mother your father because from this moment forward someone will be coming for dinner every night behind your forehead. You lower your newborn to your breast what is left of your breast pet its head nosing for your nipple the first pinchy suckling pinpricks arriving because you are a father and there there precious you say settling back into your pillow grinning closing your eyes the visions commencing.