Birthing Beans

Yesterday I was ripping beans apart. Not fancy French beans. Plain broad beans (which by the way sound fancier in America: “Fava” beans). Twasn’t the glint in the eye greedy relish act of ripping but the rather tamer restless violence born of sheer boredom. With deft surgical precision and patience Grandmother had prepared the beans for C-sections. Already removed the taut wire like thing at the side of the beans. They lay in a heap of springy spirals by the beans side. An average of four sometimes more, the twins popped out of their oddly elongated wombs- brothers and sisters one by one (can’t be too sure of the sex though). Future sibling rivalries were foretold. Some beans being shinier and slimmer. Heftier beans gave birth to plumper baby beans that seemed to have burst an artery somewhere. Under pressure. Purple slowly seeping through the lime green. A hole in the heart maybe. And then Suddenly (No I didn’t wake up and it wasn’t a dream) I jumped. Womb revealed a wriggly ugly worm. Sorta spine chilling. Lulled into security, settling into the humdrum ripping. Stillborn bean then.