The baby wails. The baby—beautiful, horrible, the love of their lives, scrunching its brown eyes, stretching its brown skin, body swaddled in cotton, body pressed against its mother, body which once pushed against its mother’s body, body which continues to stretch and rip and hurt its mother’s body, body brought from the hospital only some weeks ago, still wrinkly and still with that sweet smell, chubby, chubby like cute, chubby like when it’s suckling on its bottle or on its mother’s breast its cheeks puff, in the dark room, in the middle of the night, while the humidifier is blasting, while being rocked back and forth, with its mother begging please please please, with its mother struggling to breathe, with its mother straining her arms from holding on for so long, with a voice it was only just given—wails.
Sighing, Rehka comes in from the other room. Just take out its batteries, she says. She feels the baby’s back for the groove and unlatches it. She pulls out two flesh colored batteries. The wailing halts. The baby stills. Its mouth still open. Its arms midair.
Rehka puts the baby back in the crib and goes back to bed.
Zeenat remains there, shirt stained with the baby’s spit and all, in shock.
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We opened it up. We opened the closet at my friend’s house, looked through boxes of clothes or light bulbs or new batteries until we found it. A box with lint and dust and the word FRAGILE on it. It was duct taped twice over so we took the kitchen scissors to it until the bottom gave and the thing fell onto the floor with a thump! We saw its front before we saw its back. It’s a baby, my friend said. We were six. Is it going to cry, I said. We looked down at its naked body, quiet and unmoving. Well pick it up, I told my friend. She picked it up. Do you think we killed it, my friend said. We turned it over.
Where the thing opened, it was red. A patch of skin was peeled from it and left open.
We stuck our fingers in, squealed, then took them out. It was gushy like the inside of a mouth. It felt soft. When we tried to squish it together, it didn’t budge.
I wonder if that’s what mine looks like, I said.
Why is it in my house, my friend said. Why are its batteries out, my friend said.
Should we put some in, my friend said. Yeah, I said.
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Batteries expire. Batteries cannot be recharged. Batteries, two per person, cannot be interchanged. Batteries belong in the little flesh box of one’s back. Batteries are as thick as thumbs. They can be broken like thumbs, too, if one tries hard enough. Batteries are red or brown or the shades in between. These are the facts we know about batteries.
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Scientists and philosophers alike have taken to studying batteries. The scientists put batteries under microscopes, plug people into machines, and study how batteries affect the body and the mind. Philosophers write books about the relationship between the batteries and death or the relationship between the batteries and god or the relationship between the batteries and our being.
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The pope decrees unplugging to be similar to murdering. Pastors give sermons dissuading people from unplugging themselves or someone else. Religious leaders still debate the theological implications of removing batteries.
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Teenagers experiment with taking out their batteries. The activity becomes known as an enlightening one similar to doing hallucinogens.
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My mother says the batteries are pieces of god inside us.
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When people get pregnant at the wrong time, they might decide, I’d like to keep this baby for someday. When I have more money or more time or a different partner or a different life.
They nourish it, speak to it, give life to it, this thing, until it becomes not a thing—until it becomes living or real or pink or brown with little breaths.
Some tell their doctors or nurses to take out the batteries and to keep the baby away from them until the time is right. Hospitals begin storing babies where they store dead bodies, in the mortuary. I asked a doctor once at a dinner party if he considers these babies, like the other bodies, dead, too. And if he does consider them dead, do we all die when we take out our batteries? And if we do die, then who do we return as once the batteries are inside of us again?
Some like to take out the batteries themselves. Let me, they say. I should, they say.
Then where do you store your baby? Do you put it in the closet? Do you redecorate one of your rooms into a nursery, paint it a pukey yellow color you will soon regret, buy a crib with a mattress, hang a musical mobile on the ceiling, and leave the baby in this space, untouched until you decide to give the baby back its life?
Do you look at it everyday and, if so, are its eyes open or closed? Do you not look at it everyday and, if not, do you feel guilty?
These are the questions I have for these people.
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There are murderers out there who will take out a stranger’s batteries and leave the person there, on the street or in the parking garage. One person commits multiple crimes where they forcibly remove the batteries, decimate the body, and leave the stolen batteries near the scene.
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We were at a dinner party. One of those wine and cheese things with a charcuterie board. I did not bring it up but she did.
We always take out the other’s batteries, Melissa and David told us.
You do, we said. We looked at each other.
Well, we like to do it in bed sometimes, Imani said. Her partner nodded.
Do you like that, Rachel asked, intrigued. Her husband shifted his eyes.
Well, we’re not into that stuff, Agatha and Sandra said.
When we were seated and eating soup, I thought about the one time I took out my mother’s batteries. I wanted to spend more time with her even if it was her body rather than her personhood I felt warm next to me. I asked her if I could do it and she let me. I told her, anytime. You can take out my batteries anytime and I would not hold it against you.
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Or one time I saw these two people sitting at a table in a café. They argued until one took out the other’s batteries. They let themselves do that to each other. They give themselves a pause.
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Sometimes, depressed, some reach around their body and take out their batteries. I had a friend who took his life this way. His parents put his batteries back in, signed him up for therapy, and gave him a curfew. We love you, they tell him every night. They never found the note. Do you wish they did, I said. I told them goodbye, he said. Do you feel godless, I said.
He said, Sometimes. In the mornings and during all the months of summer.
Me too.
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Celebrities make tabloid covers when they keep their parents alive. They pay doctors to remove their parents’ batteries moments before death and then they pay mortuary cosmetologists to do them up. They get their stylist to choose an outfit or two for the deceased. One such famous actor makes his assistant change his mother’s clothes weekly—including underwear, People reports.
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How much of my body is mine, I said. And how much of my body is yours.
This much is yours and this much is mine, she said and kissed me.
Give me a number, I said. From one to one hundred. How much of my body do you want to be yours?
I want all of it. One hundred, she said. That’s love.
And you get me, she said. She pushed me down on the bed. One hundred.
I let her take out my batteries soon after that. She does it once in bed. She does it another time when we’re fighting. She does it once just because and we fight about that. I never take out your batteries, I keep telling her. But you can, she said. She shrugged.
It’s enough for me just to know I can. Why isn’t that enough for you, I said
I asked her what they feel like, my batteries. Are they brown like my skin? Or did she worry if she’d ever lose them or how long did she do it for or how long could she see herself doing it for and questions like that. If I were ever to leave her, would she take out my batteries so I couldn’t?
She asked me what does it feel like when they’re out.
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I wanted to do it myself the first time but my dad did instead. We were fighting and he took out my batteries. I woke, a minute later, maybe even seconds, with my dad still in front of me. I carry this with me until I can receive it.
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The doctor never responded to my question but instead told us:
Some people leave their baby there, forever. Some people take their baby back, but when the batteries are put in, the baby is defective. But it works most of the time. The baby hasn’t aged. We send them home with breast milk supplements.
Is there any correlation between how long the baby is left there and the baby functioning, someone asked.
Ah, good question, the doctor said. There is no correlation.
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The batteries power us. We exist with the batteries. We exist because of the batteries. We have the power to turn ourselves on or off. We desire and trust and love. These are the things we think.
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My godparents took out their dog’s batteries every time they had guests over. We haven’t had time to train Sasha, they told me when I found her stored under the kitchen sink. Yes, he pees all over the place, they told me when I recently visited.
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I felt with you, I told her.
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Or once, I was on a date and she brought me to her place. We were naked on top of the covers.
Do it, do it, do it, she urged me. She wanted me to take out her batteries and fuck her. It turned her on so much, she told me. Really, I asked. I loved her the way I loved a body next to me. She nodded and guided my hand to her back. I took her batteries out but then I just fell still. Her body felt cold underneath me and by the time I put her batteries back in, I had my clothes back on. I left without even looking at her.
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Nobody knows about the first time I took them out but I’ll tell you.
I am with myself I took it out myself I begged myself I begged myself I beg myself I pray to myself I hurt myself I love myself I see myself and I see you who wishes to be seen I receive myself I give myself I take myself and I’ll bring myself I’ll offer myself I’ll curse myself I’ll sacrifice myself I’ll hail myself I’ll write myself I’ll preach myself I’ll bow down to myself I’ll commune myself invoke myself resurrect myself sanctify myself purge myself violate myself flagellate myself destroy myself and to you I’ll—
When he took them out he took out my voice he broke my body he said you are mine then he shut me off like I was but a thing in this world how often did I look around thinking here I am how lucky but how horrible but how nice how ugly how disgusting how dangerous how violent how transient how sacred how sweet how soft how am I here
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If my batteries could talk they would say:
I’m yours, too.
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Then I notice some days where my partner gives me ninety of her or sixty of her. There’s a week where she gives me twenty of her then twenty of her then twenty of her and I’m still giving her one hundred.
Is that fair, I ask her. I guess not, she says. She takes out my batteries and puts them back in.
For the first time, I take out her batteries. I look at her still body. She is not any more mine than before. Are we ever able to be vulnerable enough? Are we ever able to be one hundred to anybody other than ourselves?
I realize we’ve left each other and how powerless we are to slow it down. I plug her back in.
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Sometimes you forget. Then you take your shirt off or you scratch your back or you find yourself in the mirror. You feel around your back for the batteries and remember. You like the feel of them. You want them out of you. You realize you can never see yours.
You walk around your neighborhood, you see everyone, you see their batteries under their skin, you see them being today. You let yourself back in your house. You forget yourself.
You, are you feeling? Give me a number: _________.
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We never found them. When we tried to find batteries for the stilled baby in my friend’s house, we found batteries that didn’t fit, batteries that weren’t charged, batteries for the remote control, but we could not find the right batteries. When we heard my friend’s dad, we stuck the baby back in the closet and ran away. We don’t talk about it, ever.
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I turned her around. I slipped my hand up her back, found the slice of skin that let me in, and revealed her batteries to me. The skin is so thin you could tear it off. It opens like a wound being scraped into. You never like seeing other people’s battery box because it reminds you of your own. It’s ugly. It’s not something you should see, your insides, your flesh. Red and darker and pink and white with tissues and muscle and fat asking, you think you can see? And bundled tightly with the flesh are your batteries: cylindrical, maybe a bit lopsided, flesh and thick. They are so tough to grasp and pull as if once you take them out you can never put them back in again. Pieces of insides tear as you drag them out and then in your hand you’ve finally got your batteries with some tissue hanging from the sides.
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We give each other numbers. We don’t know how much we give or how much we receive. We don’t know when we will stop or when we will be unplugged. We are possessive and afraid and violent. And you, aren’t you the same?
We get drinks with our coworkers and twiddle with our batteries, not quite taking them out. We walk behind someone and consider, for a second, unplugging them. We go to bed with our partner without talking. We pretend the phantom isn’t in the room. We go through our days, years, lives, ceaselessly begging the universe.