Ugly Baby

I am an ugly baby. There's no denying this. At less than a month old, I have a huge double chin. My eyes are tiny black dots. I'm completely bald. My face isn't symmetrical. My left ear is an inch lower than the right. When I smile, people recoil from me as if slapped.

Most parents would overlook this. They usually can't tell they have an ugly child. Parents think their child is precious, beautiful -- simply because it's theirs. They coo, and they swoon, and they bore everyone by saying how wonderful their baby is.

My parents aren't like that. They find me embarrassing. They ignore me as much as possible. I spend most of my time in my crib, my diaper full of shit, staring up at the ceiling, feeling a rage so intense it cannot be expressed in words. Not that I can talk. I can think, but I can't speak. My vocal chords are underdeveloped. My tongue is not mine to control. Being a newborn, I can’t even manage "gaga".

But my thoughts are full of words. I don't understand it. Maybe it's proof of reincarnation. Maybe these words come from some past life, carried over into this new one. I have this vocabulary, in my head, to express all these feelings, but I can't get them out into the open.

"I hate the baby," mommy says.

"You don't mean that," daddy answers her.

"I do, John. I do mean it. I hate the way he looks. I hate the way he stares at me. He's not a bad baby, he never cries. But I just can't stand his face. And I think he hates me. I think he can tell I don't care for him. The way he stares at me, with his weird little insect eyes..."

"Deb, come on. Get a hold of yourself. It takes time to bond with a new child. It's not an instantaneous thing. Give it time. Now, I'm not saying you're suffering from postpartum depression or anything like that..."

"I am not depressed," mommy says firmly. "I feel fine. I'm happy. I... I just hate the baby."

They're silent for a moment.

"I hate him too," daddy admits quietly. "I hate saying it, but I do."

"You do?" mommy gushes with great relief. "Oh, thank god. Thank god. Maybe we just aren't ready to have kids. Maybe we need more time for ourselves. I don't know. I hate to say that we're simply too selfish to have children, but... We aren't ready. Is that it?"

"Maybe. Maybe that's it."

"I have a life. I have things I want to do. I can't be expected to take care of some ugly little fuck."

"Come on, Deb. Don't call him that."

"No. No, John. Let's be honest. Let's find out exactly where we stand, here. Do you want to take care of it?"

"Not really. I mean, just being near him… It makes me feel sick. But he's ours, and... We’ll just have to do our best. I guess."

"No. I simply won't stand for it. Something has to be done."

"Like what, Deb?"

Mommy says, quite slowly, "What if he had... an accident... of some kind?"

"Deborah! He's our child. What you're suggesting is..."

"I know what it is. Murder. There, I said it. I brought him into this world; I can take him out of it!" Then she laughs nervously. "That's what my mother used to say to me, when I misbehaved."

"Let me just... Let me just think about it," daddy says. "It's a pretty radical step."

"Well, don't take too long to think about it. I don't know how much longer I can stand him being here."

They have this conversation right in front of me, right above my crib. They assume I won't understand. Most babies wouldn't. But I do. I understand every single word and nuance.

Part of me wonders, are they right to hate me? Is there more to this than just my physical appearance? Is there some kind of taint, deep inside of me? Some sort of evil? Am I a monster? I was born ugly, yes. I can admit that. Is there a deeper ugliness? Am I morally deficient? Is my personality broken? Is there something wrong with me?

I've gone over it a million times. Besides being ugly, I seem decent enough. I'm pleasant. I hardly ever cry. I coo and gurgle the way a good baby is supposed to. Clearly I am far more intelligent than a normal child my age. What can I do to demonstrate my good intentions? What more am I capable of? For fuck's sakes, I can't even crawl yet.

It's them. Obviously, it's them. My parents are to blame. I am no monster. They're the monsters. They're the ones who brought a child into the world and then decided, because the baby is ugly, that it's a failure. They see me as an inconvenience, a bother. What superficial, stupid people. Couldn't they have planned ahead, recognized that a child isn't something you just bring into the world without giving the matter some thought?

They're the sort of couple who just do what's expected of them. They reached a certain age, and they got married. They bought a house. They had a child – they had me. They were stuck in that routine of the thoughtless. They looked to their friends, to see what they should be doing. And they aped what they saw – merely the external appearance, mind you. Because when you study your friends from a distance, trying to figure out what they're up to, all you get is the shiny surface, and none of the darkness underneath.

My mother takes up drinking, to cope. Bourbon, judging by the smell of it. She comes into my room with a tumbler full of her poison and rattles the ice cubes in her glass above my head.

"Who's an ugly baby?" she says, her voice slurring. "Who's a fucking horrible monster?"

That's how she greets me, her son.

I just stare up at her. Not smiling. Not moving. I just watch. It seems to make her nervous. I am a quiet, studious baby.

"Where's your daddy?" she asks me. "Do you know where your fucking daddy is? Is he having an affair with his secretary? Is he fucking some bimbo in an office boardroom somewhere? Is that where your fucking daddy is? I wouldn't put it past the bastard. That would be just like him, leaving me here with you."

Her cell phone rings. It's one of those smart phones, an iPhone. She answers it.

"Where the fuck are you? Of course I'm at home. Someone has to look after the living abortion. Don't give me that bullshit, John. You never worked late like this before we had the kid. Come on, John. You can't expect me to swallow this crap. You can't leave me alone with him. I thought we were going to do something about this. John. John! Come home. Talk to me. John?"

Daddy has hung up on her. She looks at the phone in disbelief, then goes to take a sip out of her glass. It's empty. With a sudden fury, she throws her tumbler against the wall and it explodes into shards.

For the first time in my life, I seriously consider crying out, weeping like a normal, frightened child. Instead, I clench my little fists. Some stupid part of me thinks I can win her over by being good. I'm a sucker.

"God damn it," mommy says. She slumps against the wall, and for a moment I think she is going to cry. She puts her smart phone on the railing to my crib and goes away. A few minutes later, she's back with a broom and dustpan. When she's done cleaning up the broken glass, she goes downstairs.

She's totally forgotten about her phone. I have it now, tucked away somewhere no one ever seems to look -- inside my diaper.

Daddy comes home a few hours later. There's an argument downstairs. I hear sounds, yelling, then nothing. As they come up the stairs, I hear daddy say:

"Can we discuss this tomorrow? I’ve had a long day."

"You've had a long day? You left me here, alone, with that thing."

"Deb, tomorrow. I promise."

"Fine. But that's it. Tomorrow, before you go to work. We decide what we're going to do. Okay?"

"Okay," daddy says.

"We need a plan. You and I are going to do this. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Do you, John? Because I'm talking final solution. Get me?"

"I get you, Deb. Jesus."

It gets quiet then. They watch TV. They eat food. They go to sleep. I spend the entire time in my crib. No one even thinks of taking me out or feeding me or changing me. But I don’t just lie there. I'm busy.

My eyes have trouble focusing and I have difficulty moving my fingers, but I begin to understand how the iPhone works. I don't have a clear plan, at first. I just want to understand this device, see what my options are. I swipe fingers over the screen. I push the home button. I bring the device close to my eyes and study what I see.

The Internet. Here are tons of possibilities. I could find some sort of government agency for the protection of children. I could send them an anonymous tip from a concerned neighbour. "I heard them threaten to kill their child. They never seem to take it outside anymore. I’m worried."

I quickly dismiss the idea. No tricks. This isn't about games. I want to speak. I want to be heard. I want them to understand what I'm going through. I want them to know how I feel.

I surf the app store. Maybe they have something I could use. My fingers get better at manipulating the screen. My eyes gain a sharper focus. This iPhone is exactly what I needed. My intellect, my body -- I need something to channel my energies. Up until now, all I had was a rattle -- a plastic sphere with dried peas inside. Shake it, and it makes a noise. Christ, what the fuck is the point of that?

On the app store, I find a text-to-speech application. Exactly the sort of thing I want. Who needs a functioning tongue when you have technology?

I turn the volume down low. I type a word -- "cat". I get the device to speak.

"Cat," says the iPhone.

I try typing a few trial sentences. It takes a lot of effort. My fingers aren't stable. Sweat runs down my tiny face. But I'm motivated.

"If music be the food of love, play on," says the iPhone. "Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers... Itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout."

It's a Stephen Hawkings robot voice. But then, what am I? A baby, in a crib, who can't speak, with an intellect trapped inside. I'm very much like the handicapped physicist. And soon I will surprise mommy and daddy with my intelligence, with my feelings.

I can make this work. I will communicate. I tuck the iPhone back in my diaper and get some rest.

It feels like my eyes just closed when I wake up, suddenly. How many hours have gone by? There's a noise. A quiet noise. I look up. My parents are at the door. Daddy is holding a big, fluffy pillow. The way he's carrying it, I realize this pillow is their murder weapon. They intend to smother me to death.

I take the iPhone out of my diaper and I start typing.

"Listen to me," I say. "This has to stop. I know this will come as a shock, but I'm intelligent, and I need you to listen to what I have to say."

Daddy stops in his tracks. He drops the pillow. Mommy, behind him, peers over his shoulder. Her mouth hangs open. She can't believe what she is seeing. Neither of them can.

"What...?" mommy says, her voice trailing off.

There I am, lying in my crib, on my back, the iPhone propped up on my belly. And I’m typing up a storm with my fingers.

"Listen to me," I type, and then the iPhone speaks the words. "This is not a trick. This is your child, your baby talking to you. I know what you plan to do. I know what that pillow is for. You can't smother me. You can't. Because I'm an intelligent being. And, by the way, I appear to be more intelligent than the two of you put together. You don't think a crime lab will be able to tell I was smothered to death? They’ll never think it was crib death. You idiots have no idea what you're doing. You'll both be off to jail."

I shake my head. No, this isn't what I wanted to say. This isn't right. I change tracks entirely.

"I'm your child," I say. "I'm yours. You created me. And it's your job to take care of me. You need to love me. Do you understand? You need to stop being children and look after me. Your lives have changed. You need to own what is happening to you. You need to take responsibility for your actions. You can't have a child and then ignore it, abandon it."

"I need to be fed," I say. "I need to have my diaper changed. I need to be stimulated intellectually so I develop in the proper way. I need so much, I know. I'm helpless and small. Yes, I suppose I am a burden, but I need you to help me. You two, you had a child. It's your job to help me with my needs. You don't know what it's been like, looking at you two botch my upbringing. I listen to your feeble excuses, watch you fight over what needs doing. Daddy runs away, not wanting to take any responsibility. Mommy wants to go shopping and watch soap operas and sit on her fat fucking ass."

I'm furious. My fingers hurt. My eyes are burning from staring at the screen. I don't care. I ignore all my physical pain and I keep typing.

"I love you. Why don't you love me? What's wrong with you people, that you would ignore a newborn child, let it sit in its own shit? Why? Why do you do it? What's wrong with you two? What the fuck is wrong with you? Answer me!"

But they just stand there, gaping at me. They think they've gone insane. They can't believe this is happening. And I guess it is a lot to take in, a baby typing frantically on an iPhone, communicating in complete sentences. But I don't want to feel sympathy for these idiots. I want answers. I want them to explain themselves. I want them to be confronted with me, with what I want, with how I feel.

"There is this huge, burning, terrible ache in my chest," I say. "It's longing for love. For care. For nurturing. It's tearing me up inside. And I hear you say such terrible things about me, and about each other, and I ache all the more. Why won't you love me? I don't think I'm all that ugly. Shouldn't a little ugliness even make you feel sympathy for me? Doesn't the runt of the litter get showered with all the more love and care, because it is helpless and smaller than the other puppies? Couldn't you think of me in that light? Couldn't you at least try to..."

Daddy steps forward and rips the iPhone from my hands. He throws it on the floor. And then he stomps on it, crushing it under his heel.

I can't believe what he's done. It's so stupid. So ignorant.

As if to drive the point home, he kicks the shattered iPhone to one side. Then he speaks to mommy, without looking away from me.

"Let's go," Daddy says.

Mommy's eyes are huge. Her mouth still hangs open. "What...?" she says.

"Let's just go," daddy says.

"Go?" she echoes.

Daddy grabs mommy by the arm and they slowly back out of the room. They don't want to look away from me. The way they’re staring, it’s as if I will levitate out of my crib and chase after them. Instead of hearing what I had to say, they're terrified that I can speak, can understand them. If anything, it has made them all the more stupid, selfish, and frightened.

The door closes. And then there's a loud click. I realize with a start that they have locked the door. I didn't even know there was a lock on my bedroom door.

It's quiet for a long, long time. I strain to hear a sound. There's nothing.

They're never coming back in here. It hits me with a chilling certainty. This is it. They're just going to leave me in here. They're going to let me die of thirst, of hunger. They're just going to completely abandon me. They're never coming back into this room again. They wouldn't do that, would they? Oh yes, they would. Of course they would. They're young and stupid and frightened of everything. I might just be a baby, but I'm so much older and smarter than they are, and they're just going to leave me in here to die.

That's when it happens. Something inside of me breaks. The ache in my chest pops open, like a boil being lanced, and I am flooded with painful emotion. And I cry. I cry as loud and hard as I possibly can. It pours out of me like lava. Like red hot pus. It’s a furious, painful, sobbing scream of impotence and need.

For the first time in my life, I'm crying like a fucking baby.