Flash Fiction!

With last year's non-fiction pieces coming off very well with the overall tone of my blog, it now perhaps needs to be counterbalnced this year with some fiction. So (with a title that was of a pick 'n mix choosing from a sac), here is the first piece in what I hope to be a line of titles:

Born This Way

 By the time we had returned to the consulting office, Mrs. Henshall had a decidedly self-satisfied gleam upon her face.

“And what are the chances of it being…not as I planned, you see?” She knotted her fingers on the hollow of her stomach, plotting as it were to be already. It was common that these radiant, pure creatures used these excuses as the uglier truth more so than of a failed pregnancy.

“You never can tell, Mrs. Henshall.” I dotted the blue fountain pen on my already tortured blotter of impatience.

She spoke of how wonderful it is that these selfless men parted with their natural gifts, a young child was the solution to the rambling house she had inherited from her recently departed mother and no, it would be just the two of them. As it was before life’s little outbursts struck once more. That’s how mother always saw it. Just those ungovernable beings that once in a while have to channel their anger with the imperfect beings below.

“It’s like a raffle. You don’t know what you’re quite going to get. Mother never got up from her bed for last year’s fair. Wasn’t like her at all.”

I felt the solemn uneasiness of telling another grieving daughter that she was blinded by her love for family’s sake. Most of them don’t have an ounce of nurture in them.

“What if you can’t cope with the child? Have you accounted your lifestyle in this?” Rejection always starts with compassion on its lips.

She considered with the first instance of maturity I’ve seen so far today.

“It’s not about coping, doctor. I loved my mother since my memory could function. She always cuddled me, but never protectively. What if my baby feels that way about me? Didn’t you listen to my first question?”