Excerpt: Jonah's got the Belly of a Whale

Jonah’s got the belly of a whale

Chapter one

Sitting here eating the twelveth baby carrot of the hour—and it being only ninth minute of the hour—the irony occurs to me with the same thrust that hits the inside of my belly more often than I prefer to think about. These were the very same snack that had led me astray in the first place… The very same snack that was the reason for my ever-swelling predicament.
No, I realize baby carrots are neither fattening nor of the devil. However, these “Farm Fresh baby carrots” were the very thing that led me to this growth on my stomach… this extra weight I am now carrying around. It was these devil-grown carrots’ fault that I am sitting here this early Saturday afternoon, seven months pregnant, thirty-nine years old, and no closer to solving the mysteries of God’s will for me than I was a year ago when I had impulsively done like the carrots had tempted me, and had gone on that Puerto Vallarta cruise for carrot-lovers.
Forget the carrots! Swallowing back my cravings I step on the trash can lid opener with my slippered-foot. The lid springs open, hitting the wall with an echoing thump and I at once dump the remaining half-a-bag of baby carrots. They land among the coffee grounds and uneaten instant oatmeal from this morning. Apples and cinnamon. Ew. The plastic bag, with smiling “Farm Fresh” chickens, gets put on the counter to dry out. I’ll recycle it later. No sense making a mess of the recycle bin.
With renewed relief with myself for kicking the carrot habit once and for all, I glance at my calendar. My eyes scan the remaining two weeks of October, then I flip the page up to glance over the remaining weeks of November and another page, to December, until my eyes rest on the circled date of December 25th. Doomsday. Armagedden. The birth of some lucky man’s child. And the birth of my child, too, now that you mention it.
Not that there’s really a ‘you’ in this situation. It’s me, Jonah Gilbert, alone and worn-down in this generic apartment. Not even a cat to talk to at this point, since he ran away while I was on vacation. A lot of people talk to their cats, after all. Conversation after one-sided conversation fill many sparse apartments, all rented by old maids. A little meow every once in awhile to assure the crazy 39-year old woman that she is not alone. But clearly, there is no ‘you’ here with me.
Unless the ‘you’ is God.
But who here has had enough from God? Raise your hand. Oh, look. Jonah’s got her hand raised. And being the only one? That makes her vote unanimous.
So the whole apartment full of people here has had enough from God. It is because of his odd dangerous missions that I ended up on that carrot-advertised cruise in the first place – to escape!—and thus ended up with more extra baggage than just a few hand-woven sarapes. And it was in trying to alter the first decision and instead do the right thing, to accept the mission—clearly, God doesn’t understand the term, ‘better late, than never!’—that I ended up with further fears for my life and had to escape further, if only to protect the safety of this little Jesus-wannabe in my belly.
Ten weeks. Ten weeks remain until he’s born and I have to figure out what to do with him. Raise him? Send him to live with his grandparents? Sell him to gypsies? Leave him on a doorstop? Let God deal with him?
The stress is almost too much and I’m tempted to leap into the trash can, save those carrots from their fate and rinse them off.
“God, I need a carrot.”
My empty voice sits in the room for a moment and with a wary shrug I head back over to the trash can and do that very thing. They’re just carrots. Why am I even quitting them, anyway? Babies need vitamin A just as much as I do. And it’s too late for the carrots to cause any more trouble. I’m pregnant! What more IS there?
The grounds are hard to get off completely. Crunch. And mmmm. Kind of like a carrot latte.