Deep Sea
This is Fairly Unpleasant
They were up early from worry when they saw the press release in their email. Typically they got three or four of these things a week, these ads touting health treatments that mostly had to be bogus. This one was being promoted by the lifestyle brand of the blonde actress who played American Eliza Doolittle in the My Fair Lady remake. She was only in her early 30s but already felt compelled to branch out, and they were faintly aware that the lifestyle brand had become controversial for selling flagrantly harmful merchandise. This press release seemed to be driving into it. “Radical infertility cure—you can finally conceive using the most unexpected medicine. Cleanse your womb and get ready to have the baby you always wanted.” They gave in and clicked on the link and eventually made their way to the small print and sucked in their breath, then scrolled to the contact information.
“Yes hi, I’m calling from Spurious Magazine and I just received your press release about your uh, infertility treatment. Can you connect me to someone who can give me more information about this?”
“Yes, thanks, hi. Yes, I wanted to talk to someone, preferably on the record, about your Womb Cleanse Infertility Solution. Yes, sure. So I read the details and uh, it appears that you are actually giving people mifepristone, the abortion pill? How does that address infertility? Is that legal? Hello? Hello?”
It said right there on the website what it was. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that someone would ask them a question about it, but well, they would have to resort to other methods to get a statement.
They went back to bed and couldn’t quiet their mind, so they got up and made oatmeal and left it on the stove. They topped up the cat’s bowl. They laid down on the couch with a blanket and a wedge pillow. The alarm went off in the bedroom and they started and got up to turn it off, the light unexpectedly coming through the window after they peeled the t-shirt off their face. They cupped at their breasts, which were tender but had not grown. They felt a little crappy but weren’t sure if it was that sort of crappy. It was time to wash up and go find out, then.
The doctor swiveled the transducer around inside their body like some periscope competition.
“Ah, there, yes. Now I remember, last week it was beating but it was quite small, a little slow for me, yes? Now I see it here, you can look,” and she turned the screen, “and you can see it is still now.” She put on a practiced grave face. “I’m sorry, but it looks like an interrupted pregnancy. It is not viable.” They had expected this but they were still bum rushed by sad disappointment. “You can get dressed. Take the time you need, then come out and we’ll talk.”
They were given a referral to the maternity hospital to get the pills and told that the health service would not cover any investigations of these things at their age. They had no questions, they left, they booked a taxi to the hospital. Right before they stepped out the door they had an idea and cancelled the taxi and then called their editor.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I’m so sorry. But are you sure you want to put yourself through that?”
“If you can get me the price I asked for, I’ll do it and it’ll be huge,” they said. “Total click orgy.”
“It’s batshit though. Why are they claiming a round of abortion drugs can help you get pregnant?”
“They’re probably using data out of context. I started to look into it but couldn’t make sense of it. But I need to start on the pills soon, so if it’s a no-go call me back so I can go to the hospital. And also I’ll need to expense the appointments if it works out somehow.”
The editor made a ruffled noise. “I’ll call it in. I’ll get back to you soon. But you can always back out, ok? Not everything has to be copy.”
“Yeah.”
The editor called back 15 minutes later. “Approved. But really, don’t feel like you have to do it. Maybe it would be better to rest.”
“Ok, I’ll get back to you soon.”
Two hours later they were buying a wristband at a branded tent in the shi-shi waterfront district. They overheard someone say that the blonde actress might stop by later. They circled the booths and took a few photos, they typed some notes into their phone for later. There were a lot of pseudo-Asian massage-type accoutrements and sad-looking food items, but it took them longer to track down what they were looking for. Past the most trafficked area there was a neutral-colored tent with vaguely female symbols posted in muted tones around the edging. The tent fabric looked expensive.
“I’m looking for the womb cleanse. Do you have it here?” they asked.
“Why yes, thank you for coming to us,” said a low-key brunette with a wig-perfect blow out. “We like to move to a private area to talk about the cleanse so we can personalize the treatment based on your history,” she said, beckoning them around the side of the tent where a comfortable chair was set by a table full of glossy papers. The sound of the fair receded and another woman entered the room. She had honey-colored hair and smelled great from yards away, through a mask. The brunette left and the other woman walked them through a reassuring pitch on the womb cleanse, and before they realized it, they had already signed three different liability waivers without overt concern or scrutiny. They felt creeping alarm.
“So I read on the website that this is the same as the abortion pill mifepristone. Can you tell me what the dose is?”
“The dose is perfectly calibrated to boost your fertility.”
“Ah, could I get how many milligrams that is?”
“Three hundred.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you writing about this?”
“Well yes, I am. I was hoping to get someone on the record about all of…this. Specifically, I’m wondering why an abortion drug is supposed to boost fertility.”
“A peer-reviewed study from 2016 showed that people who took mifepristone were 20% more likely to conceive within three months than a control group that did not take the drug,” she said. “In addition, please note that the second release you signed, here,” and she tapped a page she had already collected with a perfectly shaped nail, “says that you will not publish, in whole or in part, the discussion we have here today. Although I will give you a contact number after we talk so you can get some quotes.” They gritted their teeth and slumped slightly in the comfortable chair. It didn’t even make an unattractive sound. They would have to look up what sort of chair it was on Images later.
“Ok. I get it. But I do need to take this stuff anyway.”
“What?”
“I miscarried. I have to get it out.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You should probably see a licensed medical practitioner, then.”
“I will later. But first you need to give me the appropriate dose and then, later, I’ll try to get pregnant again, and I’ll write about what happens.”
“That’s really a lot, you should probably go to a hospital.”
“I signed the releases. I have the money, I want the treatment. How’re you going to deny me?”
At last the woman did not have an immediate reply. She carefully dispensed a beautifully branded package from a basket behind her and checked the label.
“This should do it. And please refer to the third release,” and she tapped a different page “which specifies that this treatment is a dietary supplement that is not intended for medical use. And please see a doctor. Please.” Then she was gone and the brunette came back to retrieve them. They were shown out the back of the room and found themself on the street a block from where they started, away from the fair and out of sight of any tents. That was fine, they were done anyway, they decided, and they headed back to their car.
They stocked up on groceries and cleaned their bathroom. They got a second set of pills from the hospital anyway, and they settled in and took the cleanse pill out of its beautiful package. It was pink, of course it was. They called for pizza delivery and watched an old Bourdain episode and then took a sleeping pill a little after the pink pill, knowing it would only carry them so far. They stuffed their underwear with two super maxi pads and a wad of toilet paper and came to on the couch at around 4. They didn’t want to get up but they really had to. And it had started. They had to bend over and wait for the wave to pass a couple times before they got to the toilet, where they remained bent, crushing their gut to block out the feeling. They lay back down on the sofa after a few more hunching starts and rolled into a ball. They didn’t really sleep until their alarm went off two hours later when they jammed the second set of pills in. They took another sleeping pill and changed their batting and ducked out again for a few more hours.
They didn’t dream but when they woke they thought about the deep ocean, where specially engineered submersibles went on daring explorations under enormous pressure to capture faint images of delicate, enormously bejawed fishes and the tiny lanterns on their heads, the horrors of their writhing segments, their sharp mouths with whipping spines. The superlative tentacles lit suddenly in surprise, caught out and perceived only with great effort. Great effort, or dying and being tidal-borne to shore as a formless gob, the change in pressure causing all the delicate stacks of segments and perfectly wrought lamps to become goo on the beach, where man in all his ignorance would traipse through their guts barefoot, then take photos and gawk, make memes about nightmare fuel, and then forget. The ocean spilled out its perfect art onto land where it was unable to maintain its shape, and the womb is the ocean. They hated themself for allowing the thought, but it was the deep sea.
