<10 minutes>

Her belly was soft, and hung over the top of her jeans like a short apron made of rancid butter.  Joel followed her slow progress up the tree with the carrier bag over one shoulder, the handles pulling long and thin from the weight.

On a wide branch wrapped in a two year layer of plastic, Anna’s foot slipped against the wet, congealed things inside.  Like flat, greasy sausages.  Road kill in a condom.  Joel waited as she found her grip again in case she fell on him.   “How high do we need to go?”

She was breathing hard, gagging now that she’d disturbed the contents of the bag.  She toed a clump aside with her foot on the next branch before she set it down, and fingered about for dry patches with her hands.  “Higher than this.”

There was a stuttered squawk from the bag.  Joel shrugged his shoulder to swing it, which quietened the baby down.  “Look, we’re high enough.  Let me pass it up to you.”

The wind was picking up, slipping through their clothes and drawing the mist of their breath away a second after it left them.  The bags rattled and snapped with great jerks about them, a few slipping away only to be caught on the next branch.  They all blended together into a mass of matte white plastic and disjointed and fading brand names.  Joel held the tree with his knees to get his other hand around the bag over his shoulder, holding it up shakily to Anna.

She grunted when she took it, almost slipping again on the plastic wrapping.  Seeing how the handles had split, she took a few seconds to tie them into a clumsy knot and then lay the bundle against a bow.  The weight and bulge of the bags around it held it in place, the plastic creaking as the baby stirred.  Anna started to climb back down immediately.

Joel swore when her boot landed close to his fingers, sliding and stepping down the tree in turn to get away fast enough.  Back on the ground, he took a few paces back, hands on his hips and eyes on the wrapping of the tree that shuddered with the wind.  “Reckon anyone’ll notice?” he asked when Anna came to his side, still panting and wiping her hands on the wet grass.

Anna smelt her hands, spat into them and ran them through the grass again.  “Fuck no.  What’s one more bag baby here?  We’re right by the hospital for Christ’s sake.”

Joel nodded.  “Yeah, fair play.  Let’s go before someone starts missing us in there.”

As they retreated, the waiting crows flew in and began picking jerkily through the bags, looking for the new one.  There were several feeble cries as they settled in.

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