Story #5 Birth (Class Workshop)

Danielle Orner
Story # 5
03/06/07
Birth
The doctor eased his rubber-gloved slippery hands between Sarah’s sweating, trembling thighs to catch the baby struggling its way into the world after six hours of labor. It couldn’t be long now. Sarah’s husband, Frank, delicately patted the pool of sweat on her forehead as if he was afraid to touch the heaving, moaning, suffering woman his wife had become. He glanced, nervous little glances wrung with concern, at the doctor as if pleading for an end or an escape. The doctor smiled the reassuring smile that he always gave to husbands on the verge of becoming fathers.
“Won’t be long now. Everything is going just find. Give it another big push Mrs. Craig.” The doctor coaxed in a voice muffled by his mask. He was about to peak back around the tent made by the sheet covering Sarah’s legs to tell Frank that the head was coming when the head did come and slid into his waiting hands. The neck and shoulders were wiggling out next but the doctor was too preoccupied with the look of the head to notice that the rest of the baby was coming. The head was emerald green and covered with phosphorescent scales that winked with little specks of violet and scarlet in the florescent hospital light. The head was slim and long like that of a baby crocodile but with a shorter snout. The rest of the body slithered out and coiled up in the doctor’s hands. The creature was small enough to fit in his two cupped palms. There were small scarlet spikes running down its back and a pair of dark green wings folded close to the body. A tail twice the size of the body hung over the doctor’s fingers. The doctor had never seen one before, but knew without a doubt that Sarah had birthed a dragon.
The eyes lids fluttered open revealing bright black eyes and the tiny mouth stretched wide in what appeared, at first, to be an infant yawn. A high pitched shriek burst from the little red mouth and the doctor caught sight of a flickering forked tongue. Sarah jerked up to a sitting position and Frank stared at the doctor. They both strained to see what was in his hands. The doctor, not knowing what else to do, held the now wriggling dragon up for them to see. The dragon stretched out its four little legs like a cat. Then it began rolling about in the doctor’s hands trying to clean the blood and birth slim from its body.
“Well, is it a boy or a girl?” Frank asked the doctor.
“I am not sure.” The doctor shifted the squirming body from hand to hand carefully avoiding the tail, which had begun to twitch to life.
“Oh no.” Sarah moaned as she sunk back into her sweat pile of hospital pillows.
“What?” Both men asked watching the exhausted, agitated birth mother.
“We were going to name the baby Michael after my grandfather but that isn’t at all appropriate now. Didn’t St. Michael slay a dragon? Isn’t he the one picture always standing on a red dragon’s head with a sword in hand?” Sarah babbled still woozy with medication.
“That wouldn’t do at all,” Frank smiled. “I guess it will have to be Victor after all.”
“The strange thing is,” began the doctor, “that I thought dragons hatched from eggs like other reptiles or at least that what I have always read. I guess we better take the little guy to the neonatal care unit to run a few tests just to make sure everything is alright.” The dragon ruffled its wings as if to show it was perfectly fine but the nurse whisked him away to the emergency clinic all the same.
Victor was soon returned to his parents, struggling to free himself from a tightly wrapped blue blanket. Not only were his vitals fine, he had upset the other infants by slapping his tail vigorously against the sides of his plastic chamber.
“He is a spunky one,” chirped the rosy-cheeked nurse. “He is gone give mommy and daddy plenty of trouble. Aren’t you, you little rascal?” The nurse stroked Victor under the chin and he curled up to with pleasure. His eyes were just beginning to close when the nurse transferred him to Sarah’s outstretched arms.
“Ooh. He is beautiful, isn’t he?” Sarah ran her index finger down his back and traced the outline of his wings. She pulled her hospital gown back and offered Victor her swollen breast. Eyes closed, he sniffed his way up and opened his mouth. Sarah let out a scream. Victor awoke and pulled his ten little needle teeth out of his mother. After that, they stuck to bottles. Victor chewed his way through twenty-five of them in the two days they remained in the hospital.
Burping Victor also proved to be a problem since he often let out tiny bursts of flame that scorched the hair of his mother and the nurses. Despite these disruptions, Victor spent most of his first days curled beneath the blankets at his mother side.
Sarah and Frank took Victor home after the doctor declared that baby and mother were in fine health. On the first night in his very own yellow nursery, Victor climbed out of bed and viciously attacked his nightlight. He preferred the dark and burrowed deep beneath his blankets to sleep warmed by his own fiery breath.
After only two weeks of living happily together, Sarah and Frank found the nursery empty. The looked everywhere in the room before realizing that someone had left the window open. They had never seen Victor do anything with his leathery wings but stretch them proudly when he strutted about among his teddies. He must have been a fast learner.
“I always knew this day would come but I didn’t think it would come so soon.” Sarah sighed through mixed tears of pride and loss.
“I know, honey. I know.” Frank looked at the unused baseball mitt sitting on Victor’s dresser.
Frank and Sarah left the window open for four years hoping Victor might fly home again. Yet, when they had baby Isabel, they had sense enough to close it. Just in case.