The child arrived in the world at the stroke of midnight. Just at that strange, teetering moment when the green digits on the theatre clock blinked and switched from 23:59 to 00:00, the air was thick with the hum of anticipation. Doctor Clark and Nurse Porter exchanged a silent glance, while the on-call neonatal consultant, in a flurry of blue scrubs, hurriedly scooped up the unmoving, bluish child and transferred him to a cot beneath the cold strip lights. He wasnt breathing.
The mother, Emily, turned her head slightly upon the pillow, watching the team fuss about as though the whole event was an odd bit of television shed seen too often.
Perhaps hes dead? Hes not crying
The thought drifted foggily through her mind, still shadowed by the afterimages of pain. At last, a tiny bleat slipped from the newborns mouth, growing by degrees into a full-bodied wail, a sound that echoed off the linoleum and snaked along the deserted hospital corridors, breaking the heavy silence of the hour. The doctor, nurse, and neonatologist hovered around the infant, quietly scrutinising him as though inspecting some rare and inexplicable artefact.
He was utterly peculiar, this baby. His spine, on reaching his shoulders, deviated in such an odd, symmetrical arc as to create two elongated ridges that travelled down almost the length of his chest.
How on earth is that possible? the flabbergasted consultant muttered. Ive nevernever seen anything like it. It simply cannot be. Cant be.
When Dr. Clark visited Emily the next morning to explain the particularities of her newborn son, she curled her lovely lips in distaste.
So he’s a freak, then? Well, thats just brilliant.
No, thanks. Do what you like with him, but Im not interested in taking home a freak… I didnt even want a healthy one, let alone this… Bring me some forms. Ill sign whats needed…
And she left the hospital, light and unburdened, weeks later, her son remaining behind, blissfully unaware that the person nearest his heart had slipped quietly away.
At the orphanage, they named him Harry. Yes, Harry and nothing else. The staff draped him in dresses and jumpers far too big, in hopes nobody would notice his oddity.
Yet even if his figure had been the most flawless in the world, Harry would have still seemed different from the crowdthose wailing, shrieking, fighting, and ever-squabbling toddlers. Something unchildlike lingered in his blue eyes, shaded with long, dark lashes.
He would often stand at the window and listen inwardly, straining after something elusive, something he could neither catch nor comprehend.
One day, as a wavering file of two-year-olds tottered down the hall towards some uncertain event, Harry heard IT. Music, faint and ethereal, drifted from the half-open door of the matrons office. It was nothing like the children’s ditties sung during musical hourthe marches they practised, arms flailing and legs hopelessly out of time. This was different. It was like wind, a warm, gentle breeze, lifting and rocking him aloft, soothing him with invisible arms.
No words, but there was a soulvivid and aliveenfolding him, whispering secrets that belonged to him alone.
He stopped, causing havoc in the neat procession, and began to sway in time to the phantom melody, oblivious to the other children bumping into him, while the carers tried, in vain, to nudge him along.
In that moment, everything inside his little mind fell into place. What hed tried to find amidst the hubbub, the wind, and the drains singingit was all here, his own Music.
Samantha and James had visited every orphanage in the countryside. Samantha could never bear children, and so they decided to adopt. Adoption classes were finished, forms all ready, but alwaysthere lingered The Choice. What did their child even mean? One does not choose a born child; one simply loves them. Yet none among the host of parentless infants had felt like theirs.
Hand in hand, they walked along the railings of the childrens home. In the sandpit, little ones scrambled; girls wheeled prams laden with dollsjust the regular jostle of exuberant children, laughter spilling over the brick walls.
Only one boy, in a shapeless, overlong jumper, stood transfixed, listening to a sparrows chirrup on the garden fence. Just then, Samanthas mobile rangMozart. She adored the classics. And the boyhe twitched, his eyes lit, as if some inner torch had flickered to life, and he began to sway gently, matching the rhythm of the invisible music. Samantha and James stood frozen, ignoring the cheery bleeping.
They saw HIM. Their son. That familiar soul shining through his gaze.
Yes, I understand hes unwell disabled, Samantha replied wearily, enduring the matrons attempts to offer her a healthier baby. Children arent chosen. You simply love them. Ill take him, no matter what
Mum? Harry slipped from the piano bench and leaned against Samanthas hand. Why am I like this? Why not like everyone else?
Samantha stroked the ridges along his back.
You see, darling, were all different. Inside and out. Me, you, your dad And your back, well, remember what I told you? Youve got wingslike an angel. They havent opened yet, but they will. They will, I promise
She held him close and pressed a kiss to his warm hair. Then she sat beside him at the piano, and together they played, Harrys music ringing out with the grace that few grown musicians could manage.
And behind him, wings truly unfoldedjust visible to Mum, Dad, and Harrys guardian angel, who stood close and smiled, while the music flowedwide as a river, cradling happy Harry on its gleaming, dream-soaked waves.
