New Morning

A short story by "Phyllis Stein"

Phil South Barbara Mason sank back into her pillows and sighed. It was a long, slow sigh, and if a sigh could be said to be warm, then it was a warm sigh too. It was the sigh of a contented woman. Barbara Mason was, in fact, much more than content; she was a very happy woman indeed. For the past 10 years she had travelled the world in search of hope. She had spent huge amounts of her husband's fortune on clinics in Switzerland, on herbal remedies in Africa, and on weird rituals involving many a dead chicken, in Haiti. All of this was spent on the search for hope. Ironic, then, that her travels had brought her back home, and hope had been found in the work of one of her husband's employees, the brilliant Dr Glemen. Barbara Mason stretched out her hand slowly to her stomach. She felt the hardness and the warmth, but most of all she felt hope. She felt mother hood. This was going to be a very special Easter.     In his laboratory Dr Glemen was putting the finishing touches to the day's work. The scientist, brought out of retirement by millionaire poultry farmer Bernard Mason, was thankful for being given the opportunity to leave his name to science. His work had been a great success, and the new breeding methods, developed by him, and employed by Mason, had seen Mason's company become the biggest in the poultry market. Fertility drugs, more highly concentrated batteries, hormones introduced to curtail the development of legs and wings with faster fattening of the birds' breasts, all Glemen's ideas, had given Mason such high turnover of prime boneless meat that he had become the toast of the agricultural industry. On top of that, his work with Mason's wife, helping her to beat infertility when gynaecologists all over the world had given up, meant that Glemen had risen from nowhere to become an agricultural wizard and then the hope of childless mother's all over the world. He had been invited to speak on television programs, his work had been reported in the Sunday supplements, and there was even talk of a cover shot for Time magazine. How they all loved his work now. If only they had been more appreciative of his work in 1943...     Barbara Mason could feel the kicks. She loved this moment more than any other. When the kick came she would tense herself in the hope that the contracting of her muscles would make the thrill more intense. The child was due soon. The thought of labour excited her. She had insisted that she should not be given anything to relieve any pain. She wanted to experience fully the time spent giving birth. God knows she had waited long enough...     She wanted the child to be born at home, it was at home that hope had been given to her. And she wanted Glemen to deliver it, it would be fitting.     The door of the room opened slowly, and the face of Bernard Mason slowly appeared. Seeing his wife awake, he entered the room.     "Well dear, not very long now. How do you feel?"     "I've never felt better in my life." She looked at the compassionate face of the man she loved. Over the past few months he had seemed to be surrounded by a strange kind of aura. She had identified it as the glow of a father-to-be. It was pride.     "I love you," she said.     Suddenly a pain shot through her body. She felt as though someone had stuck a knife into her.     "Bernard!" she screamed. "Quick, get Glemen. I think it's starting."     "Stay calm," replied Mason, and he turned and ran out of the room.     The labour had not been too painful, and the contractions had increased. Barbara Mason was about to have all of her dreams come true. She looked down the bed at the kindly face of the old man who had made those dreams a reality. The contractions were coming at the rate of one every eight seconds. It was time.     The next few minutes would live in the memory of Barbara Mason for the rest of her life. As Glemen told her to push she felt a surge come from within her and she knew that everything had gone well. Her husband, at her side, wiped the perspiration from her face, and as she heard the slap and the baby's wail, a tear of joy slipped softly from her eyes.     But as Glemen held up her child, all pink and soft and wrinkly, she did not see the face of her child. Cradled in the old man's arms was a long pink blob, with no arms, and no legs. Where there should have been hair, there were a few slimy feathers. Where there should have been ears, it was flat. Where there should have been a nose, was a beak.     "Congratulations Barbara," said the old doctor, "you are the mother of a beautiful baby girl. And look, almost pure breast!"           Many thanks to Nat Cross for typing this up

Published in the April 1989 issue of Your Sinclair

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