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RE: AIR-CLINIC WRITING CONTEST: The Baby Coughed (A Short Story)
Two thoughts that flew into my mind - what if the baby had coughed a minute later? Hoe tragic that would have been. And the other was about the power of suggestion, and how we see what we expect to see. Which I guess was the moral of the story.
Smiles
About the first one, for a long time, I was undecided if the baby should cough before or after the 'event'. I guess my dislike for unnecessary pain caused me to make it before. I just couldn't imagine the little boy live on his own without his mother; and then to learn later in life that he was 'partially responsible' for his mother's suicide.
For the second one, you're right. I come from a culture where a woman without a child is a failed woman. Childhood is so important to many that it has caused so much pain and hardship. Sometimes people measure how successful you are by how many children you have.
If you noticed, she didn't attempt suicide because her boy was 'dead'. She did because she was scared of popular opinion, of the stigma. My culture, and most other cultures, promotes societal norms above individual choices. You are who you are because the community says so.
It was for that reason I wanted to kill the woman and then put the guilt on others who wouldn't let her be. Or better still, kill the child and make the woman stand up to her 'haters'. In the end, I settle for that above because that's what happens most of the time.
And yes again, you're right. She was consumed by what the society thought of her so much that she wouldn't think of any other explanation for the event before her.
I think I've said too much. I hope it's at least coherent.
Thanks for stopping by
Blessings
Oh, and this proves my point again, about seeing what we expect to see. My interpretation of the story, not being African, was different. What I saw was that because she had been convinced that her child, being a boy, would die - she saw him as dead when he wasn't. A lot of those other subtleties went over my head. So I need to read it again tomorrow with that cultural understanding. (Not now though, I'm turning the computer off for bed)