SHORT STORY: Baby Blue

Author's Notes:
The original draft of this I wrote years ago as a school assignment. I wrote it in the AM, it was crap, and I lost it soon after I got it back from my English teacher. Last year I decided to rewrite it, but seeing as I had no original to go from, I had to do it all in my head. I'd like to point out at this point that I have the memory like a sieve, although I guess in this case - taking into account the crappiness that was the original - this time my poor memory worked to my advantage.

I'm not absolutely exstatic over the outcome but I'm not really sure what I can do to improve it. I'd like to point also that I've never lived in England, I've only been to Gatwick Airport once.

Anyway, hope you enjoy reading this rather dark story.


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B A B Y B L U E


The baby is awake.

The morning light shafts in through the blinds and lands on my face, and I blink miserably as I try to focus my bleary gaze on the digital alarm clock. 5:14. I groan and thump my head back against the pillow. And then I remember. And smile.

“Wha’timesit?” the figure next to me asks sleepily, making moves to get out of bed.

“Too early for you, love. Go back to sleep for a bit, I’ll take care of Baby Blue.”

I hear her snort as I get up but she stays put. Pulling on a pair of track bottoms, I make my way into the baby’s room. The eighteen-month-old boy is standing in his cot, sniffling and clearly debating whether or not to turn on the real waterworks now that a parental unit has arrived, just to show his displeasure at the delay. I’m relieved when the votes come in against; the boy simply gives a sob and holds out his arms, as demanding as a little emperor.

“Come on Baby Blue,” I croon, my happy mood un-spoilable, as I pick my son out of his cot. “Time for breakfast.” I discretely check his nappy. “Hmm, first stop’s the loo I think.”

I change his nappy, dress him, and then plonk him down in his high chair and start arranging his morning meal. I hear the bedroom door open, the padding of naked feet towards the toilet, and then the soft hiss of the shower.

“Here we go.” I seat myself down next to the baby’s high chair with his bowl of porridge. “Here comes the airplane!” I cry and begin to mechanically spoon the grey-brown stuff into my resisting son, who immediately tries to spit it back out, aiming for his tormentor. The creak of the loo door catches my ear and soon I hear my wife entering the kitchen behind me.

“Having trouble, dear?” she asks teasingly, wrapping her bath robe-clad arms around my neck from behind.

“Maybe you could take over so I can take a shower?” is my arch reply, wincing as the baby manages to lob one right on my face.

“Shoo,” she says, still grinning, and takes my place. I grin myself as after a large splash–much like a small fist slamming into bowl of gruel–I hear her swear.

I luxuriate in my shower, taking my time. I debate masturbation and decide in favour; a little pleasure never hurt. That thought makes me smile knowingly.

After my shower and relaxing wank, I get dressed and return to the kitchen to find my wife in need of another shower. She looks surprised when I start putting my things together, getting ready to leave.

“You’re going already? It’s only six o’clock.”

“I thought I take the advantage of getting in early and actually getting some work done,” I answer, shutting my briefcase and flashing her a wry smile. She returns it almost shyly and for an instant I see the girl I married. I shake the image out of my head.

Instead I continue, “Besides, it’s Friday and traffic’s going to be murder.” I put my shoes and suit jacket on before giving her a brief kiss on the mouth. “Bye love. See you tonight.” I kiss my son’s sticky cheek. “Bye Baby Blue.” He gabbles at me briefly and my wife glares at me.
“He’s going to grow up thinking that’s his name you know,” she accuses me as I start for the door.

“Oh, I doubt it,” I throw back at her with a grin; then I’m out the door and down the garden path towards the car parked in the street.

Throwing my briefcase in the front passenger seat I quickly check the back seat through the rear-view mirror as I sit down. Still there. Good.

I pull into the main street and drive off in the direction of my work. I slide a compilation CD into my car player and hum along to the first song as I reach the first major crossroads.

I can still change my mind.

I don’t; instead of the left towards the City, I drive on towards Gatwick Airport, ringing in sick as I go.

Free. I’m bloody free! No more nappy changes, no more five AM wake-up calls courtesy of the Devil Incarnate, no more fights or moans over who does what—

I am FREE.

No more working in bloody boring Insurance either. God! The relief is making me dizzy. I can do whatever I want; six years of careful embezzling has left me with two million quid. I laugh out loud at that. Two MILLION. And now I’m on my way to the sun and the beautiful beaches of the West Indies. No bloody clinging wife, no bloody baby, no bloody worries for the rest of my life; just a lot of parties and no-strings sex to look forward to.

Sex. I wonder if I remember how to do it.

I laugh again, the music washing over me, enhancing my mood. I check the back seat again, the sight of the two holdalls making me grin. The larger one is mostly filled with clothes; the other is packed to the brim with traveller’s checks. God, I hope I get through customs, although if they spot the fake passport I won’t even get that far.

The drive takes two hours and my conscience itches a little. It had gotten better lately, between the wife and me. She wasn’t quite so tired anymore. This morning, if I think about it, had been miraculously peaceful. The baby hadn’t been half as obnoxious as he could be.

I snort. A lull, that’s all. All in all, I’d rather not spend the next two decades putting my life on hold to pander to that squalling brat, watching my wife deteriorate into some cliché of a stay-home mother. Already she isn’t the woman I married. For one thing, the woman I married hadn’t wanted kids.

No, it’s better this way. She’s depressingly straight anyway; she’d have probably turned me in if I had told her about the money. “It’s the right thing to do,” she’d say in that sanctimonious, I-was-born-with-money way. Especially since the man I used to work for is her uncle.

Hah! No, I’m well shoot of her. She was getting flabby anyway. Never got her shape back after the baby.



I pull in at the multi-storey car park near the airport. Even at this early hour there are other cars entering and leaving. I find a spot on the third storey and grab the two holdalls from the back. I leave my briefcase; nothing I want in that.

Before I head to the lift I can’t help but nervously check the fake plates. They should help throw the police off the track for a while, or so I hope.

Nervous energy is coursing through me as I enter the lift and press the bottom-most button. I’m getting away with it, I’m bloody getting away with it. My blood is singing with excitement; it’s almost erotic.

The traffic had been bad. In truth, I owed my bouncing baby boy; if he hadn’t woken me I might have missed my flight. As it is, I manage the check-in deadline by a hair.

I then calmly make my way to the passport control; the woman behind the bulletproof glass barely glances at my passport or me and I go through.

The same at the hand-baggage control; one of the controllers looks a bit askance at me as the bag goes through the x-ray machine but I grin wryly at him.

“My aunt just died and she left a ton of old book-manuscripts. I thought I’d leaf through a few on my way home. Besides,” I add dryly, “what if they’re the next big hit? Can’t take the chance they’ll get lost can I?”

The man grins back at me and again I’m home safe. Even if he’d demanded to see some proof I could have obliged him; I’d managed to push in a few actual manuscripts that my wife kept trying to get me to read. But I’m glad he didn’t push it. If he’d dug into the bag he’d have quickly realised the black bin bag at the bottom was filled with most of my retirement fund.

No. As long as I have no sharp objects they apparently don’t care what was in the bag.

Grateful that the controllers weren’t the what’s-all-this-then kind I slink into the tax-free area.

Almost every shop is closed. A few had started to open up their doors to the early morning traveller, but most of them were still barred and locked up for the night. I find a small café bar and slump into a seat, dumping my bag down next to me. A pre-recorded message starts up warning not to leave luggage unattended. I grin tiredly. No chance of that; I’m not letting this bag out of my sight.

There’s a woman sitting next to me, sipping a mocha latte delicately. I lazily scan her lines as I try to decide what to order (and women claim men can’t multitask!), her sleek business suit a beautifully tailored fit. I wonder if she’s on my flight? I hope so, she’s a peach. She catches my eye and smiles mysteriously at me, then she turns back to her coffee.

I order an espresso. What I’d really like is a beer, but you can’t have everything in life. The woman gets ready to leave, demonstrating my point, bending down to pick up her own bag before moving off. The bending affords me a nice view of her bum and I sigh as she moves off. Oh well, if I’m lucky she’ll be on my flight and if I’m really lucky she’ll sit next to me. After all, my luck seems to holding pretty well.

I grin as I drain the espresso before ordering a plain old coffee.

My wife is probably starting the laundry as I sit here, enjoying myself. Tonight when I don’t come home she’ll get worried, maybe call my ‘friend’ Dan to ask if I am with him. He’ll tell her I never showed up at work. And that will start the whole merry-go-round of ringing the police and questions and incriminations. I feel sorry for her. I’m pretty sure she still loves me, even as I’m sure I don’t love her. But I need to get out of the country before my employer cops on I’ve cheated them, and as I would have left her at one time or another anyway…

I frown, wondering if she had even noticed I was going off her. I am a pretty good actor if I say so myself, but maybe I should have given her some kind of hint. As it is, I feel fairly sure she won’t take the news well.

She’ll have the little imp to console her at least. She’ll probably feed him horrible stories about me, making him hate me; fine by me. I never wanted the little mongrel. But I had ooh:ed and aah:ed with the lot of them when she turned out up the duff, too bloody scared of her family to put my foot out of place.

But no more! I have a new name, a new identity I’d paid through the nose for, and they weren’t so rich or influential that they could spend the fortune it would take to find me on my tiny little island out in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the world.

I catch sight of myself in the mirror behind the bar and lift my coffee cup in a silent salute to myself. In the words of Mel Gibson: Freedom!

I glance at my watch. I need to move if I want to make it before the queue builds up. I push the coffee away–it wasn’t that good anyway–and grab my holdall from the floor before speeding away towards my gate.

But I soon realise the bag can’t be mine. It’s much too light. I stop and look at it and I can see immediately that I’m right; it isn’t mine. It looks almost exactly like it but it isn’t.

Realisation strikes: the woman! She must have taken my bag by mistake! If my heart wasn’t pounding from the sudden panic I could say it makes for a perfect set-up to see her again. Perfect apart from that she now has in her possession almost all my money. I wouldn’t try to find me.

I go sit down in my gate, mind speeding, trying to figure out what the hell I should do. Shit. Shit. Shit!

Feeling spiteful I unzip her bag without remorse.

My hand digs down and clasps around something rough, something with sharp edges and wires and…

Realisation strikes again as that same pre-recorded message starts again: Please don’t leave your luggage unattended. Any luggage left unattended will be removed and destroyed…

Oh my god. Oh my god. I’m sorry, god I’m sorry, I’ll—

“At approximately 8:50 this morning a suspected suicide bomber at Gatwick Airport killed ten people and severely wounded twenty-five when setting off a large explosion. No answers have been given on how he made it passed security. Among the ten dead is a five-year-old girl and—“

I switch off the radio, unable to bear more, and pick up my son. “How horrible. All those people… And children!” I hug my baby closer, causing him to wriggle and myself to giggle. “You’re just full of energy aren’t you?”

I set him down, unable to stop the feeling of relief that nobody I know could have been in that explosion. That my baby is safe and well and that the only danger to my husband is being bored out of his wits.

Watching my son crawl towards the sitting room I weigh the pro’s and con’s of calling my husband. On the one hand I might break up the monotony of his day. On the other I’ll almost certainly disturb him in the middle of something that “can’t wait”.

I sigh. Then I frown. Pull yourself together! Things are much better now than a month ago! We’ve finally begun to act like man and wife again, instead of just disgruntled housemates. My hand sneaks up to my mouth and I smile. It had been months since he last kissed me like that. Maybe tonight, if I put the baby down early…

I go to check on the baby, grinning to myself. Catching him seriously contemplating the fun that pulling down half the bookcase could entail, I grab him up into my arms again.

“What do you say ‘Baby Blue’? Should we make a special dinner for Daddy?” ‘Baby Blue’–what a ridiculous pet name!–seems to think my hair is the best meal to be had.

I walk out into the kitchen again, already planning the romantic dinner in my head. He’ll love it.

“Gah gah!” says the baby, thumping his fists against my sternum, beating it like a drum. It’s a bit painful but I can only smile.

Everything will be just fine.

THE END