Echocardiogram

An extract from Restricted Movement by

Traci O'dea

I’m topless on the padded table in the hospital, my back to the sonographer, my face towards the screen. The gel-coated wand gives me goose bumps. Nipples harden. In front of me, black screen at first and swish. Like breathing with a SCUBA tank, the sound both drowns out and amplifies all background noise. The black changes to masses of grey dots like when I jump into a swimming pool and only see the bubbles that I’ve made until they clear. Then there it is. My heart pumping on its own. One grinchy hand clapping, sarcastically. Well done, you. You’ve lived another day. She moves the wand to show some Venus fly trap jaws with ragged edges, chomping blood. Then the pulmonic valve—a bulging, wrinkly, blinking robot vulture eye—organically mechanical. Its view is something I will never see.

At last, in the second chamber, some joy: two kids at pattycake with nowhere else to go, playing their uninterrupted game on a loop until I die. This is the closest I will ever get to an obstetric ultrasound. This caged heart is mine and never leaving me.