Visuals | ✓

03 | the wonder boy

VISUALS © 2015

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[iii]

THE WONDER BOY

Cameron was a wonder boy- the wonder boy to be more exact and the story had been told time after time, year after year, to relatives, strangers, at parties, weddings [even a funeral, that one time Mrs Winchester had one too many free sherries].

But the point was, inevitably, that it was a story worth telling, a story that Cameron's parents found joy in gushing over and bragging about. It was a story that was so inexplicably real and possibly heart-breaking that the outcome of the Winchester family could be seen as a victory.

In the ultimate beginning, Anaya Patel and Michael J. Winchester got married early. Very early.

It very well seemed that luck was on their side. Right out of university, the pair had been offered stable jobs and were well on their way to be paying off their student loans. It seemed even too good to be true.

And it was.

Around a year after moving into their own home, Anaya delightfully revealed her pregnancy and suddenly their seemingly normal, peaceful lives of the two had become chaotic with the thoughts of a new baby.

It was seven weeks in that a tragedy occurred. Micheal's mother had been hospitalised with a cold that deteriorated into something more sinister. The old woman required surgery, immediately; but due to the unforeseen mistakes of a trainee doctor, she died, and that was that.

If their lives were chaotic before, it could barely compare to what they then went through. Attempts to sue went void as the hospital was adamant on covering up their mistake, paying barely a quarter of the compensation that could have been received in court. Life went even harder as it turned that Mrs Winchester also had quite a lot of debts, some due to unpaid resorts from her husband's previous death.

Each part of even the extended family had to chip in. The baby was kicking, but all attention had been turned to the issue of money and the child didn't seem to like the idea.

Twenty or so weeks in, Anaya collapsed, and it was her stomach that took the fall. She was rushed to hospital as quick as any law of physics would allow, but it was too late.

The baby died.

She dove into severe depression afterwards- a common after effect, but still unbearable to watch as the once cheerful young woman spiralled into an almost uncontrollable well of sadness. Micheal tried his best, as best as a supportive husband could, but it still took a year or maybe two before they finally tried again.

This time, Anaya had a good feeling- twenty-three weeks in and no accidents. The doctor had foreseen a girl, it was great.

But time was the enemy, her water broke two months before the due date and it was uncertain she would make it.
She pushed, she screamed and experienced all the terrors of childbirth a mother could possibly experience, but it was done. And the child was fully and blissfully alive. It didn't even matter that was actually a boy, it didn't even matter if he was blind due to incomplete development- he was alive. And it was wonderful.

Cameron was a wonder boy, because to his parents, he had changed the world. Right after his birth, the air seemed to be cleaner and life just seemed to be better.
The luck they had both appeared to have lost, returned in all its glory and it was, most definitely, all because of Cameron.

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rewritten