Over the next few days I am going to share with you my friends a short story that I wrote and published on Amazon. It is a heartbreaking story but an important one none the less.

I would normally say - enjoy! But that is not appropriate for this story, Rather I would say read and absorb the message.

Author's Note

The birth of a baby is one of the most exciting events that a parent can ever experience. The sudden arrival after months of preparation, and in some cases years of trying, marks a new start, a beginning and a new adventure and this is where I have cast my mind in writing this short story.

While this story is a speculative work of fiction, it is based on an idea born of real events and even more than that, it is based on one image that has burnt its way into my mind. Frequently we use the phrase that some things “once seen cannot be unseen” and this is yet another example of such an occurrence and this drove the necessity for this story to be told.

It is not my intention to write too much here as I don’t want to pre-tell the story that I have written and while I have not made a formal dedication for it by the time you have read it, it will be patently obvious who this story is dedicated to.

Thank you for reading.

August 2023  

Miron: Mariupol's Baby

A sound.

Pock! Pock! Pock!

I don’t know how to think, I don’t know any words or even have the imagination to know what they are yet. I have no idea what I am and any concept of who – which implies identity – is completely lost on me. Likewise, I have no sense of what I am doing or what I am here for. Although I am floating in the darkness, I don’t know what darkness is and I make no distinction between the dark or the light.

I don’t know love or hate. I don’t know fear or anxiety and I don’t know what it is to be held or kissed.

I don’t even know where I am in time or space.…

Blissful, peaceful unawareness simply means I am; it is as simple and yet as profound as that.

Pock! Pock! Pock!

…but then I suddenly became aware when a rapid staccato sound drew me from the nothingness of eternity into existence. Whatever was making the noise was small, very fast and very close and somehow, even though I didn’t understand exactly what it was, I instinctively knew that it was a part of me.

Incredibly, almost as soon as I became aware of my own rhythm, I became aware of another similar one and I realised that I wasn’t alone.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

It sounded a bit like me, but it was much bigger and resonated stronger than that thing inside of me. It was also somewhat slower than whatever it was that made me who and what I am. Somehow it seemed slightly outside me, detached, but not too far away. It was an anchor, something solid and my unformed mind latched onto it because it was something beyond me that held the promise of something greater, a wider existence, something bigger than me and a tantalising world that I had no idea about.

As I drew strength from this steady reassuring sound, my own Pock! Pock! Pock! somehow seemed to fade into the ether and this new reality, beyond myself, was all I knew. It was very, very close and even though I lacked understanding or any capacity for emotion it was only natural that I was drawn to its steady comforting regularity as it was my only constant companion, always there, always close and always with me.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

As I grew, I felt an increasing sense of space because I was somehow limited. I could not move freely and so there must be something somewhere outside and beyond me. I had a place and I had substance and this meant that I was more than an apparitional mind just meandering in the nothingness. With that sense of space, my uninformed mind came to know that I was safely cocooned in some kind of a bubble that was holding me in time and space. It was warm, almost spongey, but, while I was free to move, I knew there was no way out of the bubble.

Not that I wanted to leave.

Curious, I tried tentatively to move and was surprised that in fact I could. Movement was a new sensation. I wasn’t moving much, in fact I was swimming, almost like treading water, not that I knew what that was.

My bubble was my centre, my existence and my universe.

Time had no meaning; safe, protected and cocooned as I was. The regularity of the Thump! Thump! Thump! that I still clung to as a promise of something greater to come and the smallest of movements that meant everything to me were sustaining and as nourishing as the strange little tube that connected me to my very own little world.

I thought that was it – and it was good – and then one day yet another new sound, that added to my tapestry of experience, penetrated my existence.

Laughter.

I didn’t know what laughter was, but it was soothing and whenever I heard it, something inside made me want to move my legs and arms, even though I didn’t know what they were yet. They were strange little appendages that seemed useless, but were none the less still a part of me. It was a great thrill when sometimes my little kick would be followed by even more laughter and the slightest of pressure pressing from the outside on my little bubble that was my universe and sometimes my kick would lead to a sudden jump and another sound that felt harsher.

But it didn’t matter, I knew the voice because not only did it sound outside but it reverberated all the way around me. Sometimes it was joined by a second voice, it was much deeper but also soft and gentle. It laughed too whenever I jumped and, while I didn’t know where these two disparate voices came from yet, nor did I know love, the voices made me feel so very wanted and it made me feel really good whenever I heard them.

Sometimes they would be quieter, especially when the Thump! Thump! Thump! slowed down, but then just as unexpectedly as they disappeared they always came back and even though I didn’t know what a smile was yet, I felt my mouth turn upwards in their presence.

Something I came to know as time – which  I now had a vague concept of – passed, was that my space was getting smaller – or was I getting bigger? I had no idea what size was, all I knew was that where once I could stretch easily, I could no longer do so without pressing against the soft outer edge of my universe and as I had already come to know it was often greeted by a sudden unexpected exclamation from the softer voice. While unexpected on the outside, snug and warm on the inside, I was no longer surprised when such movement elicited such a response.

Then, just about at the same time as I had completely filled my space, something happened and everything was different. My space was still the same, but something was going on in that tantalising outer world that I was yearning to join and while I lacked the ability to think it somehow seemed less welcoming and a much colder place to be in.

The voices that I had known for so long, those voices that had become so important and comforting to me changed. Any trace of laughter was gone and in its absence there was often silence or all too often just terse conversations that were just white noise to me. With growing anxiety, which I hadn’t known nor could explain, I heard as sounds became sharper and the Thump! Thump! Thump! so close to my barely audible Pock! Pock! Pock! was no longer a comfort but a deafening gong. It frequently beat faster and these faster rhythms came without warning.

The peace and tranquillity of my bubble was gone and yet here I remained...

Part 2 Tomorrow my friends