The Invention of Pregnancy: A Short Play
posted in Uncategorized |Ned, a lesser celestial, is seated at a laptop at center stage. Enter the Achangel Gabriel, the Voice of God, stage left.
Gabriel: Hi, Ned.
Ned: Hey Gabe!
Gabriel: How’s that human reproduction project going?
Ned: Fantastic! I’m just putting the finishing touches on it now!
Gabriel: This isn’t going to turn out like the last project you ran, is it?
Ned: Hey, look, I know it didn’t go over so well, but you watch. I think the Australian mammals will fit in to the larger scheme of things better than you think.
Gabriel: (deadpan) Uh-huh.
Ned: I’m particularly proud of the duck billed platypus.
Gabriel: (deadpan) Of course you are.
Ned: It’s a beaver and a duck!
Gabriel: If we could get back to the humans…
Ned: What? Oh, right. Well, it starts out with sex…
Gabriel: That thing we had the presentation on last week?
Ned: Right.
Gabriel: Nice.
Ned: Yeah, I thought you’d like that. Then the sperm finds the egg in the ampulla of the fallopian tube, and then you’ve got a zygote.
Gabriel: Okay, hold on. Ampulla? Fallopian? Zygote?
Ned: Yeah, talk to the folks working on Greek culture. Smart people, but I think sometimes they party a bit too hard. They started having problems once they’d invented the toga…
Gabriel: Okay, okay. Keep going, but use normal words. We can’t all be tech geeks, you know.
Ned: Right, cliff’s notes version, got it. You guys in marketing crack me up. So you’ve got the zygote, which is really really really small. And it connects to the inside of the mother’s uter… uh… stomach, and starts growing. It grows for about three weeks, and about then the mother starts throwing up. And then…
Gabriel: See, I was with you, and then you lost me. She starts throwing up? Why?
Ned: So she’ll know she’s pregnant.
Gabriel: But non-pregnant people are going to vomit occasionally. It’s a defense mechanism they’ve built into the system.
Ned: Yeah, I know. That’s why we’re going to have her throw up a lot.
Gabriel: For how long?
Ned: A few months, in most cases.
Gabriel: Uh huh. But isn’t there a better way to tell her she’s pregnant? Her hair changes color, or her pinky changes shape, or something?
Ned: I’m on a budget here, and it was cheaper to reuse than to invent something new.
Gabriel: So make her pee all the time.
Ned: Oh, we will, but that comes later.
(pause)
Gabriel: You’re kinda weird, you know that?
Ned: Can I continue?
Gabriel: Yeah, but let’s come back to this later.
Ned: Eventually, the baby is big enough to see, and it looks kinda like this. (Ned clicks a few keys on the laptop and rotates it so Gabriel can see.)
Gabriel: Dyawww, that’s… wait, what is that, some kinda fish?
Ned: (defensively) It’s got to flesh out a bit yet! It’s still really small! It looks like (clicks a few keys) this after a few more pounds.
Gabriel: Now that’s cute. Nice wor… wait, a few pounds? How big is it going to get?
Ned: Well, it’ll vary, but in most cases it’ll be between 6 and 9 pounds by the time she delivers.
Gabriel: (quietly) 9 pounds.
Ned: Well, yeah. And she’s going to put on another 20 to 30 pounds on top of that to support the baby during pregnancy. Maybe more. Her extremities are going to swell up like you wouldn’t believe.
Gabriel: Are you sure her body can handle that kind of weight gain that quickly?
Ned: (defensively) It’s well within system parameters.
Gabriel: Yeah, but that’s got to hurt. The back pain alone is going too be unbearable. Anything else?
Ned: Well, this is where that peeing we were talking about comes in, because she’s got this 9 pound baby sitting on her bladder. Oh yeah, and there’s these hormones, so her skin’s pretty bad, and she’s kinda depressed all the time, but that’s nothing. Wait until she gets to delivery, when her pelvis splits so she can pass the baby through a tube the size of a pea.
Gabriel: (exasperated) What?!?
Ned: Yeah, I’ve got a picture right here.
Ned clicks a few keys on his keyboard and stands back for Gabriel to see. Gabriel gapes at the screen. Long pause.
Ned: See, it’s…
Gabriel: Shut up!
Another long pause.
Ned: When the…
Gabriel: (interrupting) Just… just give me a second. Please.
Gabriel stares at the computer screen. He turns his head first to the left, then to the right, as though hoping that seeing it from a different angle will somehow fundamentally change what he’s looking at. Finally, he turns to Ned.
Gabriel: Ned?
Ned: Yes, Gabe?
Gabriel: Are things okay at home, Ned?
Ned: What do you mean?
Gabriel: You’re not mad at your wife or anything, are you?
Ned: A little, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.
Gabriel: (yelling, which, when you’re the Voice of God, is pretty impressive) Because you’re condemning pregnant women, until the end of time, to months of vomiting, backaches, swollen feet, bad skin, depression, and then… and then… (he motions towards the laptop, unable to continue)
Ned: (also yelling, which is less impressive) You always hate my work! Long hours I put in, for years at this company, doing my best, and all I ever get is, “most animals don’t have pouches,” and, “towers aren’t supposed to lean,” and, “vapid heiresses shouldn’t also be celebrities,” and I’ve had it up to here with people telling me what a bad job I do! I quit!
Long pause while both catch their breaths.
Gabriel: I’m sorry I yelled. I was just caught off guard. I wasn’t expecting it to be so… stretchy.
Ned: (sullen) Like I said, I had to reuse what I could.
Gabriel: Couldn’t she, I dunno, lay it or something? Like an egg?
Ned: I tried that with the Platypus.
Gabriel: And?
Ned: It’s the beak that makes it work.
Gabriel: Ah.
Ned: Yeah.
Gabriel: But does it have to be so hard?
Ned: Well, yeah. It’s a person. A whole, little person, with a mind, and hopes, and dreams, and a conscience, and two opposable thumbs. It’s a miracle. It should be hard. If it weren’t hard, it would be easy, and that just seems wrong.
Gabriel: Still, I’m concerned that nobody’s going to want to go through that.
Ned: Remember the sex part?
Gabriel: Yeah.
Ned: It’s that good.
Gabriel: (pause) Well, if you’re sure.
Ned: I am.
Gabriel: Okay, I’ll take it to the Big Guy. And I really am sorry I yelled. Please don’t quit.
Ned: Will you greenlight my next project?
Gabriel: Let’s talk about it later, okay?
Ned: Okay.
Exit Gabriel, stage left. Ned returns to the laptop and starts typing.
Ned: Now let’s see… politicians…