A story Supernatural and Sublime, of Love beyond Love, of Joy beyond Joy, of Sacrifice beyond Sacrifice, of Redemption beyond Redemption, of Healing, and of Fulfilment Finally.
Once upon a time a long time ago in the faraway word of another dimension I wrote a story.
It is a very sweet, tender, nostalgic story with a happy ending which I know you will enjoy.
Here is part one for The Last Great Gentleman Thinker…
Don’t fail to check out, here in The Last Great Gentleman Thinker, the novel and fascinating proposals, though of an intellectual bent, delivered in such a unique and intriguing manner, on such a wide range of subjects, as to be truly of interest and highly informative for all –The stuff of genius!
“Human Child” (Part One)
Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. Yeats.
Water...
After her water broke they walked down to the stream, the dogs coming up to romp and frisk around them in excited anticipation.
The day was clear and bright after the passing of a short shower and in the sheer light and washed air all was lush and fresh, glinting and shining.
She carefully laid her clothes on the grassy bank and slipped naked into the clear pool, the coolness of the water causing her to take a sharp breath as her shoulders and breasts submerged.
Resting her back on the sandy bed in the shallows she hugged a boulder with each arm and stretched out, letting her legs and body float and sway in the thick glassy swirls of the flow, her breasts full and heavy glistening wetly as they rocked above the water, the brown nipples stretched by the press of milk and hard from the chill, the summit of her swollen belly appearing from time to time to show the distended navel and the ridge of downy black hair running down from it to become broken and woven by the ripples as it led to the darker shadow undulating deeper.
She relaxed and let the contractions come and go as they would, calmly accepting the stab of them, staying in the undercurrent of elation that each wave of pain twisted excruciatingly tighter.
He looked around, unconsciously registering the time and place; the sun high and dazzling in the vivid, dark blue of the almost indigo sky, rarefied by the contrast of one stark white cloud rising from the top of the steep, solitary glen.
Spilling from the cloud a thin sparkling waterfall splashed down the rocks where the steep black crags that walled in the upper glen joined, and came away as the stream, flashing as it twisted its way down.
Bright thick purple heather and gleaming coarse yellow broom swayed in clumps and tufts at the foot of the black crags, then gave way to rough, dark green pastures that spread down, dappled with white patches that blinked here and there as the black faced sheep lifted and dipped their heads in their grazing huddles, the green expanse divided raggedly in two by the stream and carved up randomly like a simple jigsaw puzzle by the winding black stone walls.
Up the grassy slope from where he stood by the stream, meandering now for a while on flatter land, was the solid stone and slate roofed house, seemingly hewn from a single black rock, its small upper windows glinting and the slate of its roof shining; and by it, on the same level, a high leaning barn and a group of irregularly shaped farm buildings, also of stone and slate, formed around a stone paved courtyard, the whole huddle resting comfortably as it had come to settle of old.
Then, looking along the track that accompanied the stream into the haze far down the long, wild valley that eventually merged into the surrounding highlands, no sign of other humanity anywhere, he whispered to himself ‘Beautiful’ and turned and waded, dressed only in pants with belt and sheathed knife on, into the pool to stand between her calves.
He smiled gently down at her, and then going suddenly into himself, he became lost to all else, intently absorbing over and over the sight of her body, his awareness of her fertility so intensified by the ripeness of her swelling pregnancy that he could have rubbed her into his face like dark, moist topsoil.
Then, in awe of the weight of her flesh pressing against the rich lustre of the golden brown skin, with the melting dark patch between her legs clawing at his bowels, and transfixed by that face of faces that shone thrills into his being, the black hair undulated around it in the water, he knew more painfully than ever the unbearable longing that would only be satiated if he could somehow swallow her whole inside himself, that most intense desire of male human existence, insatiable in this life.
Watching his trance like engrossment, her gentle eyes softened by this outpouring of supra-human, transcendental passion, happily knowing that it was sparked and stoked by the quintessence of her femininity, she glowed in the aura of this thinly muscled man of hers with his shoulder length fair hair and finely featured face, only a few inches taller than herself, so intense and vibrant, kind and gentle also, and steeped in the wisdom acquirable only from nature - her peace, the seed of her fruit, her fulfilment.
His eyes came slowly back into focus, and smiling down at her again, he asked, ‘How are you getting on, lass?’
She replied with a smile of her own, her lips so full and soft, the even strong teeth so white and clean, the pink gums so healthy that he had to join with her, and bent down to softly kiss her mouth.
Slowly they separated, the surge of the kiss strong in their breasts, and after gazing into the luminous, swirling pools of each other’s eyes for all time, his seeing mellow brown, hers seeing pristine azure, he said softly and reluctantly, ‘We’d better get on with it, lass.’
As if coming out of a dream she replied, ‘Yes, it is coming now soon.’
‘Cold?’ he asked.
‘No, it is good. It makes me feel alive. I am full of life.’
‘That you are, lass,’ he said. ‘Right, let’s try this. Place your feet on my ankles so you can push against my legs. That’s it. Now I’ll crouch down and grasp you round the neck. No, that’s too far. We’ll clasp each other’s arms instead. Right, that’s good. Perhaps your legs need to be higher up. You could hook them over my thighs. Yes, that’s good. How is it for you? Can you brace yourself well?’
‘Yes, it is good. I will have to move a lot,’ she said, ‘but, you know, in Spanish they say that the loads fit into their places on the way. It will be all right. Now, hold tight. Let me try pushing hard. Yes, that is good.’
‘We’ll battle this out together, lass,’ he said. ‘You’ll have my all my strength to count on.’
‘And you are so strong and so handsome, no?’
‘All I am is yours, lass,‘ he replied with a soft smile.
At that moment she grimaced at a stab of pain, but without fuss. After the contraction passed she said, ‘They are getting closer.’
‘Right, hang in there, lass. I’m going up to the house for towels. I won’t be long, so don’t worry.’
‘Yes, go. I will be all right.’
When he came back with a big pile of towels in his arms, she said, ‘It is time.’
He got into the water, and moving between her legs, crouched down. She hooked her legs over his thighs and they clasped arms.
‘When I must push,‘ she said, ‘I will say “pull”. Then you hold me.’
Nodding, he watched her expectantly, his body taut.
‘Ready?‘ he asked.
‘I am resting now,’ she said.
Then after a few seconds she said, ‘Now it begins. I will scream but it is nothing. Only to throw out the pain.’
Then he felt her begin to pull on his arms, and her weight press down on his thighs, and he tensed his muscles.
The pressure built up relentlessly until he had the full weight of her body hanging from his arms and thrusting down on his legs. He was surprised by her strength, so increased for this fulminating act of nature, and wondered how long he could hold out.
Then, her body completely strained, she yelled ‘Pull!’ the shout travelling up the glen like a shock wave.
The pressure rose to such a degree that he thought he might fall, but then adrenaline rushed to his head, and with more strength than he thought himself capable of he pulled until her whole body was hanging away from him, the two of them forming a taut hanging bow which dipped into the water.
Slowly the tension subsided and she rested on the bed of the stream, panting, her face trickling sweat.
‘It was a good one,’ she said.
‘That it was, lass.’
‘Now! Again!’ she barked out hoarsely, and this time she jack-knifed into the hanging bow position with such speed that he rocked from the suddenness of her reaction.
‘Aayayaay!’ The scream blasted out so loudly from her that he could feel its vibrations on the skin of his face before it echoed up and out of the glen.
She sagged for an instant but snapped right back up again, almost bringing him down again on top of her, screeching ‘Eeyaaaaa!’
Then a jerk, down and up, screaming again ‘Eeyaaaaa!’ more piercing and strained than before, eerily ringing in his ears, filling him with fear.
And, gasping, she yelled, ‘It will come out now!’, and jack-knifed again.
This time he hardly noticed the scream, so intent was he on holding her.
He could see that her hands and arms above where he was clasping them were becoming blue from lack of blood, and felt his feet slowly sinking into the sandy bed of the stream.
He looked down to see if they would hold, and instead saw something he didn’t understand... a little black semicircle protruding from her crotch.
But then he saw that the water was washing itself away laced with threads of red, and an amazed elation came over him, forcing more strength into his stretched muscles, and with the words whistling out of his mouth, he yelled: ‘The head is coming out.’
Sweat was trickling into his eyes and he had no way of wiping it off, so he blinked rapidly against the sting and shook his head sharply, his hair billowing out around his head spraying drops.
Then, with a colossal surge, she arched fully out of the water, her streaming body straining and trembling, the arc of her back with the round belly above forming a hump between his thighs and the taut cable of their linked arms, and with her face red and bulging, she held the position, pushing and pushing and pushing.
He looked quickly back down, and in that instant a little waxed and blood streaked body slipped out of her, trailing a fleshy rope behind, splashed into the water and sank onto the bed of the stream.
She sagged now, completely exhausted, and he gently let her slip back into the water then hurriedly groped for the little body.
Finding first the umbilical cord, he pulled it in until he could see little arms and legs waving about in the bloody water, which quickly swept clear to let him see that the baby was quite calm, and seemed only to be trying to swim, so, reaching under the surface, he wiped off the remaining strands of blood and mucus sticking to the little body, and taking it under its arms, lifted it out of the water and held it up to her, streaming, the umbilical cord swinging between them.
‘It is a boy,’ she said. ‘How beautiful he is.’
‘It’s a boy?’ he asked uncomprehendingly, for the first time truly realising what he had in his hands, and turned the baby to face him.
Staring in wonder, he focused automatically on the seemingly disproportionately long hose like penis sticking almost straight out of the compact little body.
‘Well, he seems well equipped in that area anyway,’ he said.
She smiled and said, ‘They all do when they are babies.’
‘Do they, though? I don’t suppose we Scots have much to boast about as far as that’s concerned, but maybe your Gitano blood has more to offer.’
‘So the Gitano men like to believe, but who knows.’
But he was lost again in the sight of the baby, the skin so white and translucent against the contrasting crest of jet black hair running along the ridge of the head.
Huge milky blue eyes below thick dark eyebrows and shadowed by long ashen eyelashes were wide open and staring here and there with intense interest.
‘You’d think he can see everything,’ he said. ‘Well, why shouldn’t he be interested in the blurry blobs he’s seeing for the first time? God, he’s so beautiful.’
Then, squinting amusingly at the baby, he said playfully to it, ‘You’re not very big though, are you?’
She had been watching his entranced gazing with gentle pride.
‘Don’t worry, he is big enough. You can weigh him after, but now you must make him breathe.’
‘What? O, yes! Of course, I won’t spank him, though,’ he said, and after a moment’s thought, he covered the baby’s mouth with his own, and sealing it well with his lips, he blew softly.
Pulling his head back he looked at the baby with concern, but nothing happened, so he covered the baby’s mouth with his own again and blew several times very gently.
Just when he was about to give up, the baby gasped and spluttered, let out one thin wail, then went on staring.
‘That’s him on his way, then,’ he said, and went on hurriedly to cover his relief, ‘Hell of a thing for a baby to be born. All they must want to do is to get right back into the warm, quiet womb. Well, he’ll both hate and love what’s ahead, but that’s life, and who would miss it?’
‘You did well,’ she said in admiration for his sure instincts. ‘Now you must cut the cord.’
‘Right,’ he said, taking his knife out of its sheath on his belt.
‘I’d better sterilise this first,’ he went on, and looked around in doubt.
‘Come here. Give him to me,’ she said. ‘I have been wanting him so badly. See how I give him his first treat.’
She confidently took the little wet body, and cradling it in her right arm, guided the head to the nipple of her left breast, which the baby took eagerly and sucked at strongly.
‘Aah, how good,’ she murmured.
Unable to tear himself away he remained fast in the water gazing in baffled wonder at the beauty of this mother with suckling child - the mother, his woman; the child, his first son.
From a tight knot in the centre of his chest he felt a wave of compressed hot love ribbon out, spreading as it went to envelop them both, and he thought, ‘I can feel this passion so intensely, but there is no way I could ever express it. I have no way to let them know the strength of it. Oh how I wish I could, but it is beyond human ability. It is spirit soaring beyond flesh.’
His eyes watered and he turned brusquely away.
He went up to a lean-to against the house, open to the stream below, where there was a whetting wheel, and sitting on the stool in front of it, pedalled and pressed the blade of his knife to the turning stone wheel, making sparks fly like galaxies; then he lit the oil lamp standing on the rough wooden table beside him and drew the blade backward and forward in the hottest part of the flame for a few seconds.
Looking up, he noticed that her belly was still round and hard, and frowning uncertainly he called to her, ‘Don’t you become flat again after the baby is born?’
She was absorbed in the sight of the baby suckling at her breast and started slightly.
‘There is another one,’ she said.
‘What?’ he gasped, incredulously, and then, in awe, whispered, ‘I can’t believe I’m so lucky! How God blesses me.’
‘He is good to me too, you know?’ She said gently, seeing how exalted he was.
‘He gave me you.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he hurriedly said, ‘but your nature, your spirit is heavenly. You are far nearer to God than anyone I’ve ever known.’
‘It is just that I am woman and can make life which makes you feel that way.’
‘You see, you know you’re special,’ he said, calming down and going back into the stream.
‘Anyway, you’re certainly special to me, lass. Right, I’m going to cut this little fellow’s cord. I’ve sharpened and disinfected the knife.’
Bending over her, he weighed the cord in his left hand a few times, then pulled it tight, and placing the cutting edge of the knife against it a little way from the baby’s belly, with one fast slice he cut it.
‘Not much blood,’ he said. ‘Now hold him up a bit and I’ll tie the knot,’ which he did neatly so that it was tight against the little belly.
‘How’s that?’ he asked.
‘Very good,’ she said.
‘Yes, it looks good. What now?’
‘We wait. See, it starts again,’ she said, as a spasm made her shudder.
‘Here, let me take the baby.’
She disengaged the baby from her nipple and handed him up. He took the baby and rocked him proudly in his arms for a while, and the baby stared up at him wide eyed.
Then he waded to the bank, spread out a towel and laid the baby safely on it.
The dogs, who had watched everything sitting and lolling on the bank of the stream, now cautiously approached the baby, and after a few sniffs, set to licking him vigorously.
‘That’s my girls. Good girls, good girls,’ he said in the usual authoritative but kind voice he used to talk to them.
‘You girls warm the little fellow up.’ And turning to her, he said, ‘The best thing for a new born baby is a good massage, and none better than from the strong, rough tongues of the dogs.’
She was already in pain and breathing in rapid gusts, through which she managed to say haltingly, ‘Yes, that is very good. Now come, I need you.’
‘Right,’ he said, and waded over to her, and they locked together as before.
‘I hope this time it will be more easy. Take me!’ she exclaimed. He quickly grabbed her up, and right away she doubled over, swinging at both their arms’ length, water running off the dusky skin of her half submerged bare body, and her dark, long hair spreading downstream around her curved, soft flanks.
Exhaling a long drawn out groan, she sagged for a few seconds then arched away again, groaning.
Then, ‘Gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp. Aaaaay, Madre Bendita… Aaaaay, Madre… Aaaaay, Madre!’
And sagging, pant, pant, pant, gasping out, ‘Is it coming?’
He was so intent on her throes that he didn’t understand at first, but quickly looked down and saw that the water was murky with slimy, clotted blood, and he thought, ‘Oh no, don’t let it go wrong now, please, please. Don’t let anything happen to her, please.’ He looked up quickly to see if she was all right.
She sagged again.
‘It’s very bloody,’ he said as calmly as he could.
‘It, gasp, is the first, gasp, afterbirth.’
‘Oh!’ he exhaled with relief. ‘Thank God!’
Automatically, he looked down and up, then quickly down again.
‘Here comes something!’ he shouted. But she couldn’t answer because she had thrust up and was using all her strength to push.
Straining against her pull, he continued looking down, and, o, wonder, the little round ball of a head emerged, this time covered in blond fuzz.
‘Looks like a tennis ball this time,’ he said, but she had gone limp, and said, with agony in her voice, ‘I cannot do it.’
‘Right, keep calm, lass,’ he said. ‘There, there, lass. Easy, easy, my love.’
‘I cannot do it,’ she said again.
‘OK, lass. Listen! The babe will choke if we don’t get it out now.’
‘I cannot do it,’ she said, and tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. ‘I cannot do it,’ she sobbed.
In her weakness he became strong; and filled with the power that comes only to succour one more important to one than oneself, he said calmly and with absolute confidence, ‘Lass, I’ll let you down. Now hug those two boulders again. That’s it. Now, I’m going to get down so that I can help by pulling the baby.’ And he lay face down on the surface of the water, his head up between her thighs, holding onto the stream bed with his hands, his legs drifting down stream for a moment, then his feet digging in.
‘Right, I’m set, lass,’ he said, lifting his face out of the water. ‘Now, hook your legs over my shoulders. That’s it. Come on now, lass. We’re nearly there. Start pushing.’
His decisiveness calmed her, and tightening her grip on the boulders, she gave a tentative push.
‘Harder, lass,’ he exhorted her, and she tried again, her stomach muscles screaming from being so overworked.
When he saw new determination on her face he let go of the stream bed with his hands, and holding against the current with his feet, took a deep breath and ducked his face into the water.
Not being able to see much, he felt until his hands cupped the little head, and with his fingertips he felt her brim straining hard around it.
Just then the brim relaxed and the head shot out of his hands as it was pulled back inside her.
Raising his head above the water, he saw her take a deep breath and her face turn purple as she started pushing again.
Down went his face, and up between her legs, feeling her brim with his fingertips, he cupped the little head when it re-emerged.
The head started to press into his hands, and very slowly and carefully he pulled it. He could feel that she had relaxed but he didn’t ease up his pull on the little head, and then he felt a new pressure and knew she was pushing again.
Gently he pulled a little harder.
Suddenly the baby slid out so fast and unexpectedly that it slithered out of his hands and was lost to him in the murky red water.
Straining to hold his breath for a second longer he thrashed around, desperately groping for the baby, lightheaded now from lack of oxygen, when, suddenly, feeling the umbilical cord, he grasped it and pulling it to him, let all his air out, shot his head out of the water, and sucked in an enormous breath.
She lay in the water panting, her face covered in sweat, her body gone completely limp.
‘Do you have it?’ she rasped fearfully.
‘It’s coming now,’ he said as he lifted the umbilical cord out of the water and the little body bobbed onto the surface.
He took it under its arms, lifted it out, and gave it a searching look.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘What is it? Oh, of course. It’s another boy. Look.’
And he bent down to show her.
‘He also is beautiful,’ she said with a beatific smile.
‘This one is a lot bigger,’ he said, as he took in the light golden tan of the skin, set off strikingly by the yellow fuzz on the round scalp, and the furry, sandy eyebrows and wispy golden eyelashes.
The face was wrinkled like an old man’s and the baby was sound asleep.
Feeling he would cry from the let down and relief, choking, he said,
‘Slept through the whole thing, this little fellow did,’ and, lifting the baby’s face to his, he put his lips over the baby’s mouth and blew.
The baby’s eyes flew wide open, the milky black pupils gazing at the middle distance, still asleep.
Sucking in a sharp breath, the baby began breathing regularly and the eyes closed again.
‘Right, here goes the umbilical cord,’ he said. He edged away from her with his left arm around the baby till the cord tightened, he took hold of it with his left hand, withdrew the knife from its sheath on his belt with his right hand, sliced and quickly tied the knot with hands encircling the little body.
‘Another good job,’ he said.
Then he started to laugh. ‘You little beauty, you,’ he said, laughing again; and holding the baby out at arm’s length he started to dance a jig, splashing water all over her and the dogs and the first baby.
‘You little darlings,’ he said. He leaned down for the baby on the bank, and with one in the crook of each arm he danced out of the stream and whirled and spun on the grassy verge shouting, ‘Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey!’
She looked at him with mock ferocity as he wheeled away up the slope kicking his feet out and pirouetting past the house, singing out ‘hey, hey, hey’ as he went, his pants clinging to his body and shining wetly.
Then, straight back down the slope, circling round and round, letting his elbows and the babies in them be pulled up and away, and swept finally onto his knees on the bank above her, where he remained panting with bowed head.
She held her scolding frown for a second then laughed warmly and said, ‘I wish I could dance with you.’
‘Lass, you’ll dance your feet off in good time. Right now, you rest,’ he said looking down at the babies’ faces. The first one was staring around gurgling happily. The second one was sound asleep.
‘This little golden one must be washed,’ he said, and placing the first baby back on its towel, he dipped the second baby in the water, holding him with one hand and rubbing him with the other.
‘Don’t you want to come out?’ he asked her.
‘I’m waiting to empty out all the afterbirth. I want to come out all clean.’
He dried off the second baby and laying him beside his brother on the towel in the warm sun, called over the dogs. They came smiling, with glistening eyes and tails wagging so hard that their whole hindquarters swayed. After sniffing the new arrival they set to licking him so hard that he rocked from side to side, but he didn’t wake.
Going over to her he sat in the shallow water by her head, and bending over to kiss her long and softly on the mouth.
‘You did so well,’ he said as he drew back. ‘I’m so proud of you. I love you more than you can know.’
She smiled happily. ‘Life is so good. This world is so beautiful and you are so good for me. You make my spirit fly. Look at my spirit flying!’ she cried, pointing to a white osprey soaring high up the glen.
‘You’ll fly, all right, but out of this water and into the sun,’ he said.
‘Let me finish. Go and look after the babies.’
‘I can see they’re fine. But I’ll tell you what I am going to do. If you are all going to sunbathe naked, then so am I.’ He stepped out of the water, stripped off his pants and shorts and threw them in a pile on the grass.
Completely naked he got down, and butting the dogs with his head, crawled through them and lay between the two babies, the dogs continuing to lick the second baby.
Lifting himself on one elbow he looked down at the second baby; then, reaching back with his other arm, he brought the first baby over, and laying him beside his younger brother, he examined them both.
‘The little brother is the older brother and the big brother is the younger brother,’ he said, looking over to her between the dog’s legs. Then went on, ‘Oh! they’re so beautiful; each one’s colouring is so distinctive. One black and white, the other tan and blond, one wide awake and one sound asleep.’ Leaning over them, he hugged one into each shoulder.
Wanting his attention for themselves, the dogs nuzzled in, so that after a bit he said, ‘Back, girls. Back. Back now. Sit. Lie.’ They spread out around him, sitting and lying, each in its own way, and he looked over at her again.
‘I am clean now,’ she said.
‘Good. Come on out,’ he said, laying the babies back on the towel and getting up.
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