The man finally turned his head to look at the woman. His profile reminded Yam of a Greek god: a straight, aristocratic nose, slightly snub at the end, and eyes framed by thick, dark lashes.
Something else was now showing on TV. The two men in suits had been replaced by images of houses in ruin, military helicopters, and uniformed soldiers covered in dust and dirt, running and opening fire in every direction. I wonder where this latest war is, Yam pondered; there’s just no end to them.
The woman turned her head. Her curls fell over her eyes, and she absentmindedly swept them away. “I can’t go through it again,” she whispered, her hunched shoulders trembling.
“I know,” replied the man, his voice tender. “Just this one final time and no more.” He laid a box on the table.
The woman stared at the box. Yam now had a clear view of her profile. She had a long, narrow nose and pallid lips. He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes but admired their strikingly round shape. The man stood up and went to the window, gazing out to sea, his back to her.
On the box, it said in big bold letters: “The Fastest & Most Accurate Pregnancy Test – 98% Accuracy.”
The woman got up and rested her hand on the man’s shoulder. They stood together quietly for a long time. Then the woman dropped her hand from his shoulder and picked up the box from the table. She quickly disappeared behind the bathroom door at the end of the hallway.
The man didn’t move, and his hand continued to tap rhythmically against the window frame.
Yam’s heart went out to this couple.
A few minutes later, the woman reappeared, pale. She placed the test tube in the middle of the table and perched on the edge of the sofa.
“The instructions are to wait five minutes,” she whispered, half to herself. The man said nothing and continued tapping the white window frame.
Yam was curious to see the result, but the scene faded now, and he found himself back in the room looking at the big, irritated Indian.
“Wait, I want to know the result!” Yam, curious, exclaimed to the Indian, only to receive a snort of derision in return.
“Seriously? You’re the baby they’re supposed to have. To know the result, you have to decide if you want this family or not. What’s so hard to understand? You decide whether the result will be positive or negative.” The Indian used two of his arms to scratch the remaining other two and seemed satisfied with his small victory.
Yam felt like tearing all four arms from the Indian’s body. Why, out of all the clerks in heaven, had he received the most annoying one of all?
Yam summoned all of his self-restraint and tried to ignore the unbearable clerk and concentrate. The decision he was about to make would affect the entirety of his next life. He definitely wasn’t going to go with the first family he’d seen – the plump and sweaty group with the pair of exhausted parents. It’s true that sometimes it’s better to be born as a second or third child, because usually by then your parents have loosened up a bit. Firstborns always have a harder time.
He remembered the last birth and the huge forceps that had yanked him out of the cozy warmth of the womb. For a whole month he had a huge, cone-shaped bump on his head.
No. That family in the forest had enough children already, and it looked like they were struggling as it is. Besides, he really wasn’t interested in being bullied by older siblings or being genetically predisposed to obesity and male-pattern baldness. He vetoed the first family.
Choosing between the two other couples proved to be much more difficult. Yam remembered previous reincarnations when all the families he’d been offered were either dreadful or miserable, and he had to choose between the lesser of two evils. This time he was lucky to have two good options.
Yam was touched by the last couple he’d seen. They clearly longed so badly for a child. He wished he could wipe away the sadness from the woman’s eyes and make her laugh again.
“Help!” The familiar, irritating, Indian-accented voice interrupted his thoughts. Yam found it hard to stifle his satisfaction at the sight of the chubby man entrapped by his own four arms tangled up. Yam reached out and wrenched one of the Indian’s four arms free and the cloud stretched backward. Then, suddenly, without warning, Yam released his grip. The Indian was flung spinning through the air and, as he hit the wall, he let out a scream.
“I choose the couple on the beach,” said Yam. He could almost smell the salty drops of water in the girl’s hair. They aren’t rich, he thought, but they’re still young and, anyway, a child should be born out of love and joy and there had been plenty of that on that beach. Besides, for better or worse, Yam had always been an incurable romantic. That’s just how he was.
“It’s about time,” said the Indian with a sigh of relief. A moment later everything faded and the room disappeared.
Down on Earth
On the white sofa, the man with the crewcut hugged his sobbing wife. “Next time, sweetheart, I promise,” he whispered into her chestnut curls.
The overweight mother chuckled with relief into her mobile phone. “Thank God I’m not pregnant,” she said cheerfully into the device and happily kissed the toddler bawling in her arms.
Amalia was pale. “I’m pregnant,” she said to the man sitting opposite her at the café. He was
