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I’m the Mommy now and it’s dark and I can’t see my babies it’s so dark but I know they’re all around me I can hear them breathing and I can hear a siren somewhere and I can hear the slow drip of a faucet and a thin scrabbly little scurrying in the walls and my babies huddle close to me and I pull off my shirt so one of them can take my nipple if she’s hungry and the siren goes past out in the street and one of my babies coughs sharply and I feel it in my own chest, rasping there, and my hands stir I want to reach out and pull her close to me but my limbs are very heavy and I try to lift an arm but I can’t I am the mommy but my body is so very heavy and now one of them comes to me and my arms move at last I pull her body to me and it is very small and it is very soft and I open my eyes and there is a spatter of streetlight from the window and I look down and in my arms pressed against my naked breast is a rat