In a Perfect World

Where abortion is the rule.

Ralph brought the car to a screeching halt, causing people on the street to turn and look, thinking maybe there’d been an accident but carried on when they saw it was nothing. Ralph threw open the door and struggled to get out.

Some nurses exchanged knowing smiles, seeing what his hurry was.

Ralph was not fast over the ground and cursed his leg for slowing him. In the hospital entrance lobby, the receptionist didn’t stir as Ralph crashed through the swing doors like a wounded bull.

“They called back at the office,” Ralph shouted, panting, as he reached the nurses’ station. “My wife — which room is she in?”

The Charge Nurse smiles. “She’s doing well.”

Ralph looked puzzled but smiled back anyway. “Alice Kershaw, I’m Ralph Kershaw, her husband,” he said, face red. “It’s my first, you see. Our first, I mean,” he corrected himself.

“Alice Kershaw,” the receptionist repeated. “One moment, sir.” She swung around in her seat and started tapping the name on her keyboard. It was slow because she only had one good arm, the other withered with no fingers.

Ralph wanted to shout out, for fuck’s sake, hurry up, will you, but bit his lip.

At last, she turned to him. “Room 306,” she said. “Third floor. If you take the lift — .”

Ralph was already limping along the corridor. The receptionist smiled and returned to her work.

Ralph squinted through his excellent eye and watched the numbers light above the doors, marking its progress as it ascended. At last, the doors slid open. He limped out onto the fourth floor.

As he walked along the ward to another nurse station, he said aloud in wonder with a huge grin spread over her face as it kept registering with him that his wife had had a baby. A million to one, child. Their baby. It hadn’t really sunk in that he was now a father.

When he reached room 306, he knocked at the same time he entered.

Alice was sitting up in bed. The moment he looked at her, he knew something was wrong. Tears were streaming down one side of her face, and she was dabbing at them with a handkerchief. Alice had been born blind and was unable to see her newborn child.

Ralph limped over and put his arms around her, trying to calm her, but it only made her worse.

“What is it, Alice?” He asked gently. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

Despite the tears, Ralph had never seen her look so pretty. He smiled, and she tried to respond. A brief smile appeared on half of her face, the other half remaining dead and unmoving. Then she remembered and started sobbing again. “The baby,” she said between sobs, “it’s — -.”

Just then, the door opened, and a doctor entered, sitting in a wheelchair. “Mr Kershaw?” he asked, looking at him.

Ralph nodded.

“If you’d care to follow me,” the doctor said. “We must talk.”

Ralph looked quizzically back at Alice, then followed the doctor out.

“Is there something wrong with the baby?” Ralph asked as they walked along the corridor.

The doctor didn’t reply. He stopped and checked the number on a room door, then took a key from his white coat pocket and unlocked it. “In here please,” he said, and they entered.

The room had no windows, and the doctor flicked on a light. There was a single cot in the center of the room, and Ralph could hear the gurgling noises of a happy baby.

“I’m afraid we’ve had one of those rare occurrences,” the doctor told him, indicating to the cot. “They still happen from time to time. We don’t really know why.”

Ralph moved toward the cot, but the doctor gently held him back. “You don’t have to see it if you don’t want to,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s not pretty.”

Ralph turned and looked at him. “I must see,” he said.

The doctor led him over and pulled back the sheet on the cot.

Ralph recoiled in disgust. The baby was deformed. Horribly deformed. The worst he’d ever seen. It lay naked on the cot, kicking its legs and waving its arms about. Two legs. Two arms. Ralph counted the fingers and toes. Ten of each. He shook his head and shuddered.

The baby’s skin was pale. Smooth and pale. Smooth and unmarked. Ralph glanced at the doctor’s hands where they held the sheet back, comparing his own coarse-mottled skin with the baby’s soft, unmarked skin. He shuddered again.

But the baby’s face! Its face was almost enough to make him feel ill. A round, soft mouth. A nose and two ears. And the eyes! Two blue eyes blinked up at the lights in the ceiling.

The doctor covered the baby and gently led Ralph from the room, locking the door after him.

“You know what we have to do?” The doctor said softly.

Ralph nodded. He knew the rules.

“It’s a kindness,” the doctor said as they walked back along the corridor. “Best putting it out of its misery. Can you imagine the life something as deformed as that would have? Imagine the teasing at school from the other children. And later,” he went on, shuddering involuntarily, “can you imagine any young woman who would marry someone like that? No, it would be too cruel to keep it alive. Too cruel. It’s best this way.”

When they reached Room 306 again, both stood in awkward silence outside the door.

“Go to her,” the doctor eventually said. “She needs you.” The doctor brightened, and half smiled up at Ralph. “Who knows…maybe in the future…,” he said.

Ralph glanced at him and nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, “maybe in the future.”

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