Born Weird Read Free

wrist. She tried to pull away but the old woman’s grip was incredibly strong and she could not break it.
    “Watch the little old ladies,” Grandmother said.
    Angie looked up. The elderly woman closest to the window fell backwards, as if she’d been deboned. The machine beside that bed made a high-pitched whine. Grandmother Weird pressed the Magic Marker against the skin of Angie’s forearm and began to write. The lights dimmed further. The white-haired woman in the next bed collapsed. A second machine began making the high-pitched whine. A nurse raninto the room. Angie tried again to pry her grandmother’s fingers away. She still couldn’t. Grandmother Weird wrote a series of numbers on Angie’s skin. The lady in the bed closest fell backwards. A third machine whined. More nurses ran into the room.
    “Stop it!” Angie yelled. “Stop this right now!”
    Her grandmother did not look up. She wrote the last number of a ten-digit sequence. Then she let go of Angie’s wrist. The lights returned to full-strength. The televisions regained reception. The machines stopped making their high-pitched whines. The elderly women sat upright in their beds and looked around the room, dazed and frightened.
    “Never doubt your elders, child.”
    “Shark!” Angie yelled. She began to back out of Room 4-206. “You will never hold my baby. You will never see me again.”
    “Yes I will,” Grandmother Weird said. She smiled broadly. She began to laugh. She laughed in
the Tone
.
    Angie backed out into the hallway. Holding her belly she ran as fast as she could. She did not look back. By the time she’d reached the elevators, Angie had already forgiven her grandmother.

N INETY MINUTES AFTER FLEEING her grandmother’s hospital room Angie was scrubbing her forearm at a sink in the women’s washroom on the departures level of the Vancouver International Airport. She’d rebooked her flight from the back of the taxi she’d taken from the hospital. The only other woman in the bathroom stood at the hand dryer. Her pantsuit was unwrinkled. The diamonds in her ears shone. She pretended not to stare at Angie. Then the dryer shut off and she gave Angie a gentle look as she walked confidently away on her strappy high heels.
    Angie looked in the mirror. The front of her white blouse was soaked. Her belly button bulged through the cotton. The ten-digit number remained perfectly legible on her red forearm. When she heard the final boarding call for flight AC117 from Vancouver to New York City, Angie turned off the tap, headed to the gate and boarded the plane.
    At row 18 a large man was sitting in the aisle seat. A third of him spilt over the chair. His right arm had already claimedthe middle armrest. He did not look up as Angie pushed her purse into the overhead compartment. She stood for several moments before he moved into the aisle and then she wedged herself into the window seat.
    Her revenge was how often she had to pee.
    Angie made her first trip to the bathroom shortly after takeoff. Her second was twenty minutes later. When she returned from her third visit, the large man had moved to the window.
    “Touché,” he said as Angie lowered herself into the aisle seat.
    “Thank you,” she replied.
    An hour and forty minutes later Angie was in the washroom for the sixth time when the plane began to plummet. She grabbed the faucet with her left hand, cradled her belly with her right and pushed her bum against the door. Water splashed onto the front of her shirt, soaking it once more. She immediately realized that Veronica was a stupid, stupid name. She made a promise to both God and her unborn daughter to find a better one, should they survive.
    The dive lasted three long seconds. When the plane levelled off Angie ran back to her seat. She fastened her seat belt, tightly. The large man beside her opened the plastic window shade. They both squinted. When their eyes had adjusted to the light they saw thick black smoke billowing from the