Andy's Shorts to GA Prompts - 7. Prompt #86

I was just getting ready for bed when I heard a noise outside. It sounds like crying, but my cabin is in the middle of a forest and my nearest neighbour is fifty miles away. The noise was getting louder, and my interest was growing. I wrapped my dressing gown around me and put on my shoes. On my way out the door I grabbed my coat, since the early spring nights were still chilly.

I could just about make out a small basket at the edge of the clearing where the crying-like noise was coming from. I closed quickly; imagining a baby in that basket, freezing in the cold night. As I closed I got my first look at the baby. He, I say he for I assumed a baby girl could not cry with such volume, had dark hair and was wrapped in a collection of blankets. Who could have abandoned a baby not only in the middle of a forest, but also on a night as cold as this? I hadn’t heard anything or anyone nearby, so I can only assume the baby had been here for a while but had only just started to cry.

I was now close enough to the basket to get my first real look at the baby. I pulled the blanket down from his face and recoiled. This was no baby I was familiar with. He had pointed ears, round eyes about an inch across and of a deep purple, an unnaturally smooth complexion and what I had initially taken to be hair was actually some kind of crest. I was shocked not because the baby looked hideous; he was different certainly, but he was bizarrely the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.

I looked around me but saw no one or no . . . things which might pass for family or parents, and since it was so cold outside I decided to take the baby inside with me, into the warmth.

As I settled down in front of the fire, I picked the baby up out of his basket and held him. For the first time since I first heard him crying, he stopped. He looked at me and started giggling – at least I think it was giggling; if he was human I would call it giggling. To think, actual first contact with an alien and it’s a baby who can’t even tell me the name of his species!

I have no idea what aliens eat, but I can’t really go wrong with a little warmed milk can I. I put the baby back in the basket, carried him into the kitchen with me and put him down on the centre table. I poured some milk into a saucepan and lit the gas. I hunted in my cupboard and found a nutmeg to grate. I lowered the gas and allowed the milk to warm gently. Fortunately I still had a bottle left over from when I was taking care of my nephew, so I put that in the steriliser. Once the milk had been warmed I poured it into the bottle.

I walked over to the table and looked again at the baby that had been dropped into my lap. He gazed back at me through his unusual eyes as I picked him up. I sat down on the sofa and lifted the bottle up to the baby’s mouth. He started sucking on the bottle like there was no tomorrow, and had drunk all the milk before I could blink.

I fell asleep with the baby in my arms, and did not awake until the sun came glaring through my living room window. I realised that the baby was gone, and not just the baby; but his blanket, his basket, the whole kit and caboodle. I found a handwritten letter in my lap.

I thank you for taking care of the little one. It was an act of kindness we had not expected humans were capable of. We did not notice his absence until he was gone. You have a heart which is rare among your kind.

We have remained hidden from your species for many centuries once your wars and plagues started. One day you will have the privilege of knowing me and knowing just what you have done for my kind.

Once again my thanks

Oberon

Oberon?

Where had I heard that name from?

It sounds so familiar?

It can’t be . . .

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