After the birth, it was as though I’d been transported to a twilight zone. Life seemed comprised only of nocturnal hours spent bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, performing a series of actions in half-light. Turn on a lamp, keep the room dim. Keep the room quiet. Lift the baby from the cot. Change the baby’s nappy. Climb into the futon, prop up the pillows, feed the baby. Burp the baby. Put the baby back into the cot. Settle the baby back to sleep.
An L-shaped room
Podcast flash story by Maria Griffin
This is about processing a profound life transition. I was a chronic insomniac and operated on about three to four hours of sleep for the first nine months of my daughter’s life. I had very low coping resources and found the first year of being a mother very hard. Recently, I recalled these half-awake hallucinations experienced while breastfeeding her in the night.
Maria’s work appears/is forthcoming in Southerly, Not Very Quiet, Right Now, L’Ephemere Review, Talking Writing, StylusLit. In 2018 she participated in Writing In The Expanded Field, ACCA Melbourne. Her work was a runner up in the Grace Marion Wilson Emerging Writers competition in 2020.
Acknowledgements:
Memoria was written, produced, edited and presented by Natalie Vella
An L-shaped room was written and read by Maria Griffin. The story was sound edited by Natalie Vella.
Music in this episode was by Blue Dot Sessions, Sage the Hunter, When in the West and The Envelope.
Illustrations by Peta Manning. Her book, See Me Doodle, is out now.
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