At the edge of Chesapeake Bay, stands a proud stone hospital by the surging sea. This hospital has witnessed its share of, shall we say, colorful characters tangled in adversity. Many more were born into the world there, while dozens more passed on into eternity from this particular place on the globe. In truth, one so described event or the other occurs there virtually with each passing day.
This specific day, however, was a Saturday in late May, in the year of Artemis, during the age of the second great deception and extortion of proletarian liberty, following the great War for Independence. The hospital was already in existence for 52 years. This day was indeed a cheerful day, like no other before it, nor any other destined to follow afterward. There were many new babies born into the world on that merry day, but inside this particular hospital, on that specific day at 0900 hours, there was this one very special baby who was born into the world.
While this new man-child is only a babe, as were so many others on that same hour and day, there was no other on earth exactly like him. He is born with a nearly white, fine hair on his head, hair possessing a passing glint of untarnished gold. The child's eyes are a wild ice blue, like those of a frozen tundra wolf. The child's skin is of an immaculately clear fairness, to a point seeming to capture the very light of the sun itself, as it passes through the window of this hospital room way up on the seventh floor; reflecting this glitter back in cheerful delight, toward all who were gathered around inside to visit.
His mother is half sitting up and wide awake, clutching this child which wrapped snugly inside a brand new elegant soft cotton emerald blanket, pressing it tightly upon her left breast. The child sleeps soundly as his mother smiles, weeps then beam some more. When she speaks the child feels warmly secure, being so near to her soft bosom. His mother glances around the room, then gazes back down toward the child with loving eyes, weeping some more, then glances upward toward all of those gathered about inside the room where the twain lay so comfortably in bed.
"Now, now, Linza, isn't he so beautiful?" exclaims the child's smiling grandmother as she stands so patiently beside the bed, warmly grasping the clutching forearm of her daughter. "What on earth could be more beautiful than a newborn babe wrapped in such highly decorated swaddling clothes? Surely you must be feeling the same sensations holy Virgin Mary did for her new babe on that very first Christmas day."
The baby's mother never makes a reply. She only continues glancing down upon the child wrapped inside a new blanket, weeping as she does so, then glancing back up into the faces of those standing inside the hospital room surrounding the bed. She forces herself to smile in strength, but her emotions always get the best of her, and she begins weeping all over again.
An aging, deeply sun browned man, bearing vivid creases across his face reading their own tales into a rough and tumble life outdoors he had lived, gently walked up to the woman's bedside. He places his roughened firm right hand upon the young mother's forearm, as she so adoringly clutches her newborn child. He speaks in a soothing, low-pitched tone, as he glances down into the face of this sleeping child.
"He is indeed such a beautiful child, Linza. I am so proud. I am proud to be his grandfather, and your father. What shocks me most is the fact of this tender babe being born to a woman who is not much more than a child herself! At times, I have to grip myself, only to comprehend this simple fact of being."
Another woman standing by the bedside is not saying anything as she also gazes into the face of this babe. She is a few years older than the baby's mother. She is already married with a five-year-old child of her own. Her dark hair is piled into a tall beehive, upon a pale slender face. Her pursed lips are virtually always red as flowing blood. She swallows hard occasionally, while glancing around the room, almost as if she is nervous for some unfathomable reason. She suddenly draws a deep breath, swallowing hard.
"Has the doctor said anything else? What do we know at this point?"
"They are deliberating at this point, Elisabeth. They don't really know what to make of anything yet," replies the mother's brother, a large, darker complected man, with the face of a boy appearing in similarity to the hardened face of the old man, who is the father of the child's mother.
Her father gently strides up again, placing his strong sinewy right hand upon the mother's forearm, as she grips the child.
"Allow me to unwrap him once more again, Lindza, and have another look for myself."
The mother allows the blanket to fall from around the newborn baby. The baby lays there motionless, with his feet turned inside to a point where the soles are almost twisted completely around, and upward.
"I don't see much wrong with him," says the old man as he grabs the child's feet. "Watch this," he says as he grabs both of the child's feet, turning them around until they are in a normal position, appearing perfectly commonplace for the time period he holds them. When he releases them, both feet draw back up into their previous abnormal position.
"See? As I was saying earlier, I honestly don't think it will take much to hold this baby's feet until they set. That's all. Just something to hold them out for two or three months, then he will be perfectly normal," the old man smiles warmly as he speaks.
The stainless-steel double door to the room suddenly burst open. In walks a professionally cut elderly man with clean, well groomed, shoulder length snow colored hair, wearing an immaculately white suit and jet-black tie. This gent speaks with the faint hint of a Germanic accent.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am doctor Roldoge'. I am the man who birthed this baby, and I will also be the man who is going to arrange for this child to be cared for."
"How is he?" whispers his mother, in a tone as if she is afraid to ask.
"He is severely club footed. In the medical field club foot of this nature is called severe compounded," spouts the doctor as he directs a hard steely gaze upon the child. His rigid aged face cracks suddenly, betraying a warm, caring smile.
"Well sir, are there any positive hopes?" firmly inquires the child's sun-weathered grandfather.
"Sir!" snaps the doctor, while maintaining his professionalism, speaking with confident affirmation. "As I have already stated, this child has a severely compounded club foot, in both feet. The condition can be corrected, but never expunged. He will always have club feet. He can function and enjoy life, but these feet will always be his, and with him for a lifelong duration."
"But you leave us in waiting, and this is my newborn grandson," the grandfather snaps in a flash of anger as he points. "We have been waiting for your reply for two bloody days already!"
"Tom!" abruptly spouts a very plump, well-dressed lady, who is his wife, and also the babe's grandmother. "You know better than to speak in such a manner to the doctor here. He is only doing his job."
She calmly turns toward the doctor.
"Doctor, you just pay him no never mind, now. Sometimes he gets excited like this when he can't have what he wants, when he wants it."
The grandfather only backs, sitting in a corner chair, staring at the wall above them with a hard look on his face, without speaking another word.
"I cordially understand, believe me everyone, please! I have children and grandchildren. But nonetheless, let's get right down to business here with this specific concern. The situation for this child is going to go like this. We are going to take him in and operate immediately. He will get a pin through both feet, with wires going from the pin to each bone inside the very structure of his feet. Each month he will come in to have these wires tightened by twisting a nut on this pin. These gradually tightening wires will pull his bones back into proper place, where they will grow solid over a course of time. He will be able to at least live a quasi-normal life."
The faces on the gathered family suddenly drop.
"Just look at it this way," continues the doctor, "this situation could be much worse than clubfoot. Many parents would gleefully trade the sickness of their child for clubfoot. There have been many famous people with clubfoot," the doctor's eyes suddenly brightened with another growing smile. " The famous author, Lord Scott, suffered from club foot. The Roman emperor, Claudius, was another. Lord Byron, the great Scottish poet, for example, had a club foot, God bless his confused soul, but so it goes."
"Will this operation be his last one, doctor?" timidly inquires his grandmother.
"I doubt it. These situations usually come in a series. He will more than likely need two, or even three more operations over the course of time. In the meantime, however, we will just see how well he accommodates this operation. I want him to come into our satellite clinic..., uh., where was it you said you lived at, now?"
"We live in the apartments over on Sailor's Wharf right now. We are planning to move in four or five years, maybe. We might move back to the family farm in Hog Waller, I don't know. The schools there were very good in the past, but with all of these new social changes being thrust upon everybody, I simply don't know what it will come to."
"Well, for your information," informs the doctor, "the world these days is getting smaller. In Scuffle Town, a relatively simple driving distance of Hog Waller there, we have a satellite clinic. I want you to bring him in for observations monthly, until we give you further notice.
"In the meantime, until the day this move comes about, you will go to the clinic nearby here. Inside this clinic is where the wires on these pins will be tightened. If you have any further questions, I will be glad to hear them out at this time. If there are no further questions, we are going to wheel this child out for this process to initiate."
The eyes of the child's mother commence to swell as her face frowns. Soon the tears begin to fall as she reluctantly hands her newly born child still wrapped in swaddling clothes, over to the elderly doctor, who gently receives him, lays him upon a small movable bed, then wheels him out of the room into an obscure rear chamber of the hospital facility. When the door closes automatically with a thump, the mother of the child commences weeping bitterly.
The young woman's very plump mother, Nannie, arising from her seat, gently approaches, laying her soft, warm, soothing right hand upon that of the weeping mother, who nervously twirls her rather thin rose colored hospital gown into a knot with her right hand.
"My dearest, Lindza, the now grown woman who was once my own youngest child, never fear. These operations are done for the child's best future possibilities. I mean," she sighs, "what on earth could a cripple ever accomplish in life, for crying out loud here? Life is tough enough for us normal people these days, much less for a handicapped person. This government keeps on complicating life for us average people.
"Look at these ridiculous social changes being forced upon us all, for heaven's sake. What on earth is happening? Are the communists taking us over, as they are in the rest of the world? Look at these atrocious taxes being commanded from us. We are working more, seemingly to receive less, although on paper we appear to be doing much better than ever before these days. You see here, now dear, us normal people are struggling; so how on earth shall those who are crippled ever make it out there in this cruel, cold world?"
"I know," the child's mother sobs and sighs as she weeps. "I know having these operations is for his best interests. I can't help it. I can't stand to think he will suffer so greatly., and I know inside he will. To even think about it just tears away at my heart."
"I know," replies the elder mother, Nannie, in a calm soothing voice. "All we can do is just pray that somehow all things will be for the best. The good Lord has this entire matter in his hands, daughter. The end will work out as he decides it."
As the child, who was once slumbering, is rushed into the operating room, he opens his ice blue eyes as his small movable bed is positioned beneath a large rectangle of brilliant blinding light. At his feet stands two females donned in gowns of absolute white, their faces covered by masks resembling some sort of giant band-aide. On either side stands two males donned in an identical dress. He blinks his eyes as he struggles to view his surroundings in the brilliance of the light.