Read My Shorts

Baby Blues

She gripped the rail of the cot, willing herself to stay upright. The warm sanctity of sleep was dissipating rapidly with the combined onset of another bout of screaming, and the cool of the early morning. Her baby lay in front of her, screwed up in a little ball of upset, tears running down her flushed red cheeks.

Nothing had prepared her for this. Her husband had been away on business for the week, her tiredness compounded by his absence. Sleep deprivation was taking its toll, and she felt her sanity was unravelling at the seams. Was there no end to this?

Her knuckles had turned white on the cot, tears forming in her eyes as she tried to force a state of calm.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, she reached into the cot, touching her hand against her daughter’s small chubby one which was curled up in a fist and clenched tight in misery. As the skin of their hands touched, the crying stopped and the baby opened her eyes for the first time in the half-light of the bedroom. Even in the dim early morning sunlight, her baby blue eyes seemed to shine as she looked steadily into those of her mother.

Tears were rolling down her cheeks as she looked into the cot, tiredness taking its toll once more, suppressed sobs shaking her body as she fought for control of her overstretched emotions. One sparkling tear fell toward the baby and a small hand reached out, the drop of salty water landing with a tiny splat in the middle her palm. As her mother looked on in sudden wonder, the baby looked at its own hand, then looked back into its mother’s darkly ringed and tired eyes.

Baby blues: dark indigo in the time before dawn. They seemed to hypnotise, a deep well of the soul drawing her in. Her world tipped in sudden vertigo and she fell deep into the opening pit of her daughter’s eyes. Indigo darkened to black as she descended, and she screamed soundlessly into the nothingness, her dressing gown streaming behind her.

Then she was floating: buoyant in darkness. A deep but calming sound, thudding constantly in the dark: warm, comfortable, safe. A sudden rush and her world changed, light bursting into eyes accustomed to the absence of light: noise, bustle, people and into blurry vision came the face she saw each morning in the mirror; large and tired looking, looming above her with a tired but happy smile on her face.

Time spun forwards, her face and that of her husband’s zipped across the cinematic vision of her waking dream. Faces of aunts, uncles and other random relatives and friends reeled past, but her own small smile always reappeared in the vision.

A growing sense of frustration became palpable. She wanted to communicate. She wanted to know more of this person who loomed over her with the small, enigmatic and wonderful smile, she wanted to respond. There was so much to know, so much to explore.

Ideas coruscated through her head, knowledge passed somehow through space and time, swirling inside her brain. The scope of her knowledge was immense, but there was no way of letting anyone know except by crying.

Planets span, numbers pulsed like neon lights in her vision, molecules, atoms, electrons, theories, literature, science, comedy, particle physics, music…

Music…

Everything moved to a tune. The heartbeat thumped in the darkness, numbers jumped in time as a vast orchestra joined the dance, the stately rhythm of the planets speeding up to frantic pitch as equations solved themselves in logical sequence. And, with a scream of delight and terror, she was speeding through the stars, the breadth of the universe spreading before her, tinged with redness in front, blue behind. An explosion of light and…

… she almost fainted as she came back, her iron grip on the cot rail faltering, staggering slightly as she regained her balance. She gasped for air, her chest heaving as she fought for oxygen, eyes flickering down at the tiny form before her who, now calm, looked back at her mother from the cot with a contented expression.

The woman shook her head dazedly. “You, you saw all that, you know all that? But, how?” she blinked rapidly trying to clear her head. “Good God. I think I need a coffee.”

She looked back into the eyes of her baby who blinked in the sunlight streaming in through the window. The little girl gurgled and then returned a miniature version of its mother’s own slight smile.

~~~

“Yes! She smiled! No, it wasn’t wind. She did a proper smile. I got so tired I think I started hallucinating though. Either that or I went to sleep standing up. She seems a lot happier in herself now though for some reason, perhaps she had a bit of a tummy upset. Oh, okay, I know, I love you too. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

She put down the phone, and looked down at her daughter who was lying on the floor looking at a large fluffy teddy. The baby moved her head, looked at her and gurgled happily.

She’d finally managed to communicate with her mother. She was happy now, and had spent a very interesting morning working out the exact volume of the teddy sitting on the floor next to her, complex formulae swirling in balletic dance in her mind. She knew she was loved, and now she could relax and concentrate on growing her mind and her body. There were a few years yet before she needed to start doing what she knew she could, but in the meantime, more pressing things needed attention.

On the sofa above her, her mother lifted the teacup to her lips and winced as her daughter reverberated with the sound of escaping wind. The smell reached her a few seconds later and she sighed and lifted her now smelly daughter off the floor, heading for the changing mat.

“I wonder what you’ll be when you grow up,” she cooed at the baby as she changed her.

The baby gurgled happily and then directed a fresh stream of wee across the shocked face of her mother as she bent down to retrieve a fresh nappy. The little girl smiled… an enigmatic little smile…

~~~ The End ~~~