You walk in, innocently. Into this dank outhouse, the public conveniences. Ladies toilets and washrooms in a park somewhere, or a beach side complex, or even those sets of cleaner, cleaner-smelling toilets in a shopping mall in the city, or a department store. The ones that used to have attendants on duty, to clean up after you. You walk into the cubicle, keen to empty your bladder, it's been a while since you realised you needed this, a time taken to locate this convenience. This is a place for quick business, no sitting and thinking - straight in and out, for relief only. And what is lying there in the bowl elicits a most complicated response, somewhere between the content of the worst-ever horror movie and your deepest compassion. A body, a tiny red thing, a baby, recently delivered, in here, the blood of its birth all over, a bloody mess. But all you can see, thankfully, is this red flesh thing wedged in the bowl. Alive or not? This is your chance to prove something to yourself, that you are brave. You must fish it out and see if you can revive it, whether it is dead or not. What sort of a trauma has this little body just endured? What about its mother? How alone must you be to go through this? Lonely.

 

The little body is smeared with vernix; there is still stuff in its mouth; the umbilical cord lying there like a fat plait. There is some stirring, some sign of life in this bleak disorder. With my fear of blood, my lifelong squeamishness, I understandably hesitate before I follow the steps for mouth-to-mouth. I'm surprised that it's a split-second decision. It's made; I do it; it's alive. I walked in on the scene of something that had just happened. Now there is the need to act quickly, and only now am I distracted by the blood trail out of the cubicle, out of the main door, the way I am running to find help, to keep this mess in my arms alive.

Never before have I felt such a need for my compassion.