I remembered his tiny feet so clearly. It might sound odd, but I'd marvelled at them even as I'd held him still and close against my chest. He was such a tiny creature...it made sense that he should have tiny features to match. His eyes stayed closed, not tightly, but gently, resting, and I'd fitted his curled fists around my comparitively huge fingers. The tiny fingernails were soft and dull, and tipped his fingers like jewels on a tiara; he was my jewel. My diamond. The smell... I'd held babies before of course, always enjoyed the powdered scent that clung naturally to their pale skin, but his was unique; his was special. That day, I'd clung onto him with a mixture of desperation and tenderness, the cocoa fluff masquerading as hair on the top of his head brushing against my chin and my nose. His tummy had a bulbous aspect to it, and snuggled up under the folds of my hospital gown, he'd looked cosy, well-fed, contented...at peace.
He'd been so small.
And his coffin was so tiny...
That's pretty damn emotional... Hope you haven't actually experienced anything like this, or ever will...
ReplyDeleteThe description is incredibly impressive though. Well done.
You asked me to comment, I do so with slight reluctance only because I'm no good at sincerity.
ReplyDeleteSo how about simply;
'Wow.'
Cheery and pleasent as always =P but honestly and good twist at the end where is the rest? xx
ReplyDeletethe rest? haha. it's a short story :) thanks for the comments, Jack, Bagelfish and Ian :) much obliged... there's more short stories to come, each more twisted than the last :p il post them when im back off my hols...x
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ReplyDeleteThis is good, but too short. Talk about the coffin, allude to the death. The beauty of short stories is that you don't have to include everything, but your style (I've seen you do it a couple of times on these pages!) of 'twist at the end, sudden stop' means that what might be a beautifully painful piece of prose becomes a bit shocking, but never reaches it's full potential.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, talk about just how tiny the coffin is - so much smaller than the crib you spent hours assembling. Maybe you intended to buy him daffodils for the funeral, but now they feel comically large, oversized and out of place. Maybe Baby's Breath instead, but what an ironic choice of name for a human who never got to take his first breath.
That kind of thing. Spin out the shock and make it into pain.