Beautiful Chaos

Le Preface

February 14th, 1999

The streets of Chicago were deserted. Rain cascaded down heavily unto the streets, flooding the big city with weeks of rain. The wind howled in the night, interrupting the complete silence that seemed to hang over everything and everyone. The moon was completely covered by the dark ominous clouds, causing the night to be even darker than it had been for years.

A woman, dressed in nothing but light rags, is drenched from head to toe. She is hunched over as if she were in pain. Her dark hair covered her face, and she holds something tightly to her bosom. She is wailing in the night, having to be all alone with nowhere else to go. But it isn't just her wailing that you are able to hear. The soft anguished cries of a hungry infant could be heard coming from her as well.

The woman sobbed, her body shaking with her sadness and the biting wind. The lights of a nearby apartment building suddenly flicker on, giving signs of life in the barren that is the streets of Chicago. The woman stopped. Her wailing ceased, but the baby's cry continued to carry out, ringing in the air.

The woman looked down at the bundle she held close to her chest, her face shining with an unreadable expression.

"My dear child," She spoke in hushed tones. "Oh my dear sweet baby, I will not have you suffer the same fate as me."

The woman made her way towards the direction of the lit up building. Tears still shed profusely out of her eyes, but there was something else in her stance that wasn't there at first. It was determination.

She made it to the building, and stopped at the first step, hesitating. She once again looked down. "My child, your future is already bright. So bright that even I can foretell of it. I may not be able to care for you any longer, but I will die happy knowing that your future will be nothing like mine."

The child's wailing ceased as the woman talked. The baby looked up at its mom, from the bundle, and gave the mom a big toothless grin.

The mother shed even more tears but managed to smile back "Take care baby girl. Be strong for me. Please?"

The woman sat the bundle, baby and all, down on the very top step in front of the door. She hadn't even realized she was walking up the stairs while talking. The baby seemed to have the ability to do that to the woman. Make her forget her sorrows, and dazzle her with that slobbery grin.

The woman turned around, making her way down the stairs. Halfway down the stairs, the woman turned around to look at her baby one last time. She made eye contact with the beautiful little girl, and the baby squealed in delight, reaching her arms out, wanting her mommy to pick her up again. The woman faltered, already wanting to go back and take her child into her arms again.

But then movement from the other side of the door was picked up by the mother's advanced hearing. The woman glared at the door, and stole a glance at her baby one last time, before running and quickly hiding behind a car that was parked at the curb.

The door opened and a woman with a large bust and huge brown hair came out, a bat in her hand warily. She peeped out into the night.

¨Mary! Who the hell was it?" A male voice boomed out into the night.

The woman, Mary, sighed before turning around and yelling, "Nothing dear. Go back to sleep."

The woman looked out one more time, before freezing, her jaw dropping in shock. "What is this?"

She crouched down and took in the sight before her. The baby was very small and frail, as it was malnourished from not being fed properly. Little wisps of blonde hair stuck up from the baby's head, and bright silver eyes gazed up at the woman, not exactly seeing her, but seeing her shadow. The baby's eyesight had yet to fully develop.

A hand came up to cover the woman's mouth as she stared at the baby in shock. Tears fell down her face as she quickly picked the baby up. The baby began to wail once again, not recognizing the arms that were around her.

"Shh shhh. It is okay, it will be okay." The woman soothed the baby. She immediately popped out her right breast, and the baby attached to her nipple greedily, calming down at having been fed. The woman took one more look out unto the street, completely unaware of the baby's mother, hiding behind a car and staring at them intently.

The mother had never seen a baby fed that way, and it was completely foreign to her. But her baby did look happy in that other woman's arms. The mother sagged in relief and sadness when her baby disappeared behind a door, not aware that it was being pulled away from her birth mother. She felt her life slipping away from her steadily. She finally was able to give up fighting and let the darkness take her at last. A wound, a stab wound in her gut was the cause of some of her pain. But the suffering was from the loss of her only child.

Her body disintegrated and all that was left by the car the next morning were a pile of rags, and ashes from the woman's body. She was gone.