BODIES

The dead babies didn't make me cry. I was crying long before that.

I cried at the brains first. At lost memories, not lost life. Long term memories are stored as chemicals in the brain, and the middle of the exhibit, I made the mistake of wondering. Of wondering if any of the chemicals were still there. If there were any memories still locked away, in sealed up brains on glass displays, never to be remembered again. What did they know that nobody else ever did? Happy memories? Did they remember growing up? Loving family? Awkward crushes? Were they ever in  love? The bodies on display were supposedly unclaimed. They were homeless, and I was suddenly scared of the locked memories, maybe of pain I don't want to know.

The reproductive exhibit was worse. It's personal. A rubbery looking coronal slice of a vagina and ovaries were shut beneath a glass case. Who was she? What was her first period like? Was she scared? When did she lose her virginity? Was she ready?

I felt heavy, dripping with memories, inevitably dying and ultimately forgotten. Stupidly, I thought I could handle the fetus room.

In the dark, they floated slowly, gently, trapped in their glass tubes. Predictably, I cry again, but not for them. They're clean, they hold no memories, no life. Or maybe, they never lived. Or maybe they should've. Or maybe, their lives just didn't matter. But when I cry, it's not for them. It's for the mothers that will never be. What went through their minds when they lost their baby? Their new family? The first fetus is so tiny, so insignificant, that maybe the mother didn't even know she was pregnant. Maybe she cried harder than I'm crying now.