Writer Spotlight: Aurelia Tice

The Host

The sun was screaming the day Diana got the news, the kind of sun that leaves imprints behind your eyelids. But even with the phosphenes floating aimlessly through her field of view, the x-ray image burned brighter, striking white blobs on a dark background each time she closed her eyes. And among those meaningless shapes, another spot. A worm. A parasite.

When her menstrual cycle had come completely to a close, it was exactly the thing she had worried about, that something had been growing within her. It had only just recently started becoming an issue in humans. The parasite was rare, and it only affected those born female, as it preferred to settle in the uterus. Lined with nutrients and plenty of blood flow with each new moon, it was a soft bed prepared for exactly what the parasite wanted: to eat and grow.

Though the procedure was becoming harder to come by, Diana had planned to ask for the removal of the parasite. The idea was first brought up to a friend. “I think it would be best for me…” she said carefully, “...if I were to have the doctor take it out of my body.”

She was startled when met with wide eyes and a sneer. “How could you even consider the idea?” the friend exclaimed. “That is a living thing inside of you! And you would just kill it?”

With her morality being called into question, Diana was almost hesitant to respond. “But…but what if it hurts me?” She swallowed. “...Or kills me?”

Diana’s friend rolled her eyes. “You’re being so self-centered, you know that? Why wouldn’t you consider that there is a life inside you?” She shook her head, exasperated at Diana’s foolishness.

 Things didn’t go much better with the physician. “It’s not my fault,” she tried. “I didn’t choose for the parasite to enter my body.”

“But have you considered that this creature now depends on you?” Diana could hear disdain lacing the doctor’s voice. “It is inside of you now, and therefore your responsibility. It needs the nutrients from your body to survive.”

“But this parasite, it could—”

“Besides,” he interrupted. “It has grown too much at this point to remove.” He simply shook his head. “It would be…unethical.”

Unethical? Diana’s thoughts were rampant; she was unable to keep track of them all, like animals that had escaped their enclosure. How could it possibly be unethical to put herself first, rather than some leech that didn’t even have a name? It just didn’t make sense: what made this creature different? If a flea had burrowed its way into her skin, if a tapeworm was laying eggs in her digestive tract, there wouldn’t have been a problem. Was it because of where this particular creature decided to feast? How could a goddamn uterus be considered more sacred than her own free will?

Diana’s lip twitched, but she only looked down. Who was she to argue with a licensed physician?

Every visit returned the same responses: it didn’t matter if it was a danger to her health, if she did not choose it, if she did not want it. It was too large, too complex, too alive to remove. 

Why did they hold this creature in such high regard? There were other women, who also fell victim, laying down their lives for the parasite. There were front-page stories about the brave women who were willing to carry it, to allow its survival at the expense of their own, like a sacrificial lamb. “I will do what I must to protect the life within me, and to advocate for the rights of every other parasite that makes its home in the body of a woman!” It was as if their own existences meant nothing, as if their only reason for being put on this earth was to carry every parasite that would bless them, right up until their last breath. It didn’t matter if they didn’t make it out, as long as it was the parasite killing them.

Diana was growing tired of advocating for herself, of asking for others to value her life. There were so many reasons to keep it; they were shoved down her throat, spat in her face. You might regret it in the future! It has desires and feelings of its own! Imagine all the things that it could be capable of! I hope you know that it can feel pain! You murderer, you selfish bitch, you silly woman. How dare she believe that her body was her own, and that it did not belong to the thing growing within? How dare she not be thankful for the pain, for having such a fertile body, for being chosen by the creature?

But, God, it was so hard to be grateful for this. The pain was unbearable. It sliced at her viscera like the thorns of an overgrown rose bush. The prickly vines were snaking their way in and out of her insides, creeping up her spine like ivy and through her stomach like nightshade. Poison seeped from the lining of the vessel within her, blossoming like ink in water throughout the rest of her body. All she could do was lay in her bed, or cough up blood into the sink, or sit on the bathroom floor, stomach heaving from a mingling of nausea and crying.

She could feel it eating away at her insides, consuming the fertile tissue of her uterus. Soon, this would not be enough, and it would crave more. She awaited the day that it first broke skin, the day that she would bleed.

Though it must be worth it, if the creature gets to live. That was what they all seemed to think, anyway.

She lived alone, but it didn’t matter. The entire neighborhood could hear her screams, her sobbing cries echoing through the trees, ringing out in the streets. It had begun to emerge in her sleep, and she woke to the skin of her stomach being slowly torn apart as the creature ate its way through. Her head felt weightless as blood began to spill, vision dimming like the sky just after sunset; she knew it was almost time for sleep now, but she still applied pressure with her bedsheets, trying to stay awake nonetheless. But it was futile, struggling to stop its advance. She knew that well enough by now.

By the time someone arrived, her stomach had been reduced to a pulp. The parasite had grown so quickly and could eat just as fast. Where her abdomen once was, there was only an indiscernible mass of tissue and muscle, shimmering in a thick wash of crimson, like the inside of a pomegranate.

But it meant nothing. She was gone, but it was in vain, for they would not learn a thing.