Flash, Prose

Beautiful Boy

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for d’Verse Prosery where the challenge is to write
a piece of flash fiction of no more than 144 words that includes
the following quotation from “Out Of The Cradle” by Walt Whitman:
“Out of the Ninth-month midnight”. This is my flash.

© Ronit Baranga – Braverman

She was told due to her advanced age that her baby would not survive the pregnancy out of the Ninth month.

Midnight tolled on the first day of the Tenth month; the babe was born alive but deformed, hideously grotesque …. his horned head was enormous with elfin ears, eyes fused closed, nubbed nose, his mouth a fetid hole.

His father was repulsed and would not look at him. Without so much as a glance back, he left the house, heading to the tavern to drown his sorrows and try to unsee the awful images running through his brain. He informed everyone that the baby had died. Filled with remorse, he returned home the next day to find his wife and newborn gone. He went searching, to no avail. He died, a broken man. 

No trace was ever found of the mother or baby.

NAR©2024
144 Words

Prosery: Walt Whitman & the Voice of the Collective Imagination

This is “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy (The Sicilian Storyteller), The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

35 thoughts on “Beautiful Boy”

  7. Talk about a face only a mother could love! But you have taken the premise and made it a tragedy of immense proportions, not for the child, but for the father who couldn’t see past the face. The story speaks volumes about the misguided judgments we make only to realize — too late! — what they cost us. Loved how you used the line to set up the narrative. Bravo, Nancy! Brilliant storytelling.

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    Reply

    1. That’s so true, Dora, and it happens to each of us. No one is immune. Either we are passing judgement without knowing someone’s full story or judgement is being passed on us. We all need to look past the visual and try to see into the heart of the other person. Thank you for your extremely gracious comments. They are very much appreciated. 😊

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  9. Good gawd, Woman! Wherever did you find such an image? It inspired quite the tale, tell you what.

    Excellent and wonderfully imaginative.

    I dunno if I should keep working on mine, now…

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      1. I tell ya! You used it very well!

        I might have to forego for now. Marc arrives tomorrow so I will hopefully not have much free time to play on the internets (wiggles eyebrows)

        Piacere!

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