Postnatal Blues

T'was the night of Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring...

Well actually...
It wasn't a house per se, it was a stable. THAT stable. And of course, the creatures were stirring: all bloody night the cows mooed, the oxen pooed and goats baa-ed. The ass kicked endlessly against its stall and eeyored through the wee hours in protest; because it had walked for a gadzillion miles carrying a heavy, pregnant woman on his back, got to this stinky place and they didn't even give him hay to chew for his troubles. They put the only straw they found into a feeding trough and just as he was about to chomp into it, they plopped a small human right in the middle of it. Each time donkey tried to come near to nibble at the edges they beat him off with a stick.

No one could catch a wink of sleep that night. Out of the midnight blue, an unearthly, earpiercing cacophony blared from above. If it hadn't been for the sheer, deafening volume, it was actually quite a beautiful sound, eerie. But a bright light also pierced through the crumbling dung ceiling until Joe and Mary had to shield their eyes from the blinding assault of the glare.

Her new mummy instincts kicking in, Mary threw her body over the manger to cover the baby from the sudden onslaught of sight and sound. But it was too late; the animals, frightened out of their wits, screamed in unison so the child jumped, flailing its tiny arms outwards in shocked reflex, then opened its tiny mouth and hollered inconsolably. Being new to parenthood, neither Joe nor Mary knew what on earth to do: she held him, he held him; she rocked him, he rocked him - nothing worked. And all the barnyard animals seemed to wail along with him. Joe could feel a migraine starting to build; he'd been having these dull, thudding pains a lot lately. Mary thought how only months ago she had given thanks for this night; and now it had finally come, there was a sour lump in her throat. It wasn't meant to have happened like this, with the baby coming a bit too early, and with the journey having been so hard. She missed her mum. But she swallowed hard, and brushed away the moisture welling up in her eyes so Joe wouldn't see.

In the midst of this chaos, it seemed that anyone who was anyone, or no one really, started to pop in for a look. First all the men on the hills, wild rough men who habitually kicked the animals; so as they drew near all the creatures sensed their violence and cowered, reverted to their normal cage habits of clustering and stampeding from corner to corner of the stable, raising up ancient dust so no one could see until everything had settled on the ground again. The frail wooden walls clattered each time they stormed round, and that's just if one shepherd raised his hand to scratch his nose, or something. Joe kept having to throw stones at the goats to stop them clattering too near the feeding trough.

"What do you want?" Joe asked the herdsmen, spreading his arms out in a feeble attempt to block their entry. But one by one they squeezed past him and came right up to his wife and new son, and just ogled.
"We were told to come..."
"Told? Told by whom? Why?"
"We don't know. But we just had to come and see..."
Their words petered out into silent, rude stares. Mary blushed and gathered her cloak around herself and her baby. God she was hungry, and sore.
Everyone stood around in this uncomfortable hiatus, waiting for the next thing to happen; for it did indeed feel like something else was due.

Right on cue these three big men appeared out of nowhere, and tried to elbow their way into what was already a health and safety risk area because it was too full. Two of them were very dark skinned - bloody foreigners. They were obviously rich, a bit dusty, but you could tell they were old money, and used to opulence. It was the way they angled themselves awkwardly in that humble spot, sniffing the air with suspicion. And all three smelled as strange as they looked, their sweat mingling with some kind of heady, musky perfume that no one could identify. One of them spent his entire visit with his nose planted on the floor from the moment he saw the mother and child; he fell to his knees and remained with his bottom in the air, trembling and repeatedly mouthing something in an unknown language. The other two tried to explain something about their journey, but neither Joe nor Mary, nor any of the locals could understand a word. In the end, they resorted to gesticulating madly at the sky, and pointing to the baby. The shepherds murmured amongst themselves, and huddled closer to each other against this foreign invasion.

Until they took out the the things they had brought! Well, the animal handlers just about popped their eyeballs when massive lumps of pure gold tumbled out of the purple velvet bag, some the size of a lamb's head. Joe quickly scooped them up, drew the strings of the bag tightly and pushed them into his wife's shaking hands. Mary considered for a moment the best place to hide the gold, and finally lifted the baby up carefully, stuffed the whole bag under the straw deep into the manger, and put her little son back on top. She folded her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking, and looked at the next gift that had been gingerly pushed forward. It was a small chest, and when the lid was pulled back, the ochre powder within wafted up into the cold night air, like a half hearted prayer for a thousand lost hopes.. One of the young shepherd boys hovered too close and the aroma of the incense made him sneeze loudly into the box - the strange nobleman managed to snap the lid shut before half the contents were blown away.

Finally the old man with his forehead touching the ground uncurled from his lowered gaze, and from the depths of his jewel coloured robes he extracted a large, gem encrusted vial. Everyone in these parts knew what that was - they used this at funerals. Mary's eyes widened in puzzlement. What ill omen was this? She looked deep into the old man's eyes, which were filled with tears. Then it was as if a stone had struck her heart and she knew exactly what this meant, and in a swift movement she picked up her child and smothered him against her breast in horror. The babe rooted and snuffled into her folds, and finding no milk, erupted in a fresh peal of mewing. Before too long, Mary also wept, from sheer exhaustion, and from the shock of this awful revelation. The three rich men knelt and touched their foreheads into the dung encrusted ground, and would not budge.

Joe finally had enough. With a rough wave of his arm he pushed all the shepherds towards the entrance, causing the goats to stampede afresh. The ass kicked at the empty water bucket and brayed at the top of its lungs. The baby screamed.
"Thank you , thank you, who-whoever you are..!" Joe said gruffly to the strangers.
"Now if you wouldn't mind, my wife - my child - they are very tired. They must rest. Please, please!"
And he physically hoisted the one kowtowing at the end of the feeding trough and manhandled him out of the stable. As he stepped forth from the animal dwelling the blinding ray outside hit him with full force so he had to throw his arm against it. Through half closed eyes he saw that it was the brightest star he had ever seen in his life, and it was right on top of his head, like a conflagration. Looking down again, he was shocked to find a convoy of kneeling camels, with an entourage of servants and their women milling listlessly around. Some of them had started small fires and were actually prepping food and pouring grain out of hessian sacks they'd brought for their journey.
"No no no! You must leave! Time to go now!" Joe insisted.
The camels chewed their tongues, were startled onto their feet and spat into the ground with disgust. Some of the shepherds came too near and were given a swift kick up their rear ends by the men servants. It looked for a moment that a brawl would break out.

Then the scream of the infant within was heard and everyone stopped. The nobleman who brought the gold raised his hand and everyone bowed low, except Joe,who didn't understand protocol. That was signal enough to send the women quickly scooping their food back into sacks and pots and pans, and the travellers kicked dust into the fires to douse them. In the haze of smoke and sand the camel boys curled into human footrests as their masters stepped heavily onto their backs, mounted their steeds, and after further instructions in a language Joe had never heard, the entire band of them started to thunder away into the night. Joe watched them swaying to an alien melody as they retreated into the desert sands and beyond.

What a night! And now this baby is here finally, he thought as he turned. Suddenly he saw the raggedy bunch of shepherds, still hovering.
"GO!" he shouted with his last ounce of energy. The men scattered in terror and disappeared down the narrow alleyways of the harsh, cruel town. He was so tired now he slumped physically, and could barely drag his feet back into the stable. He realised that his head was pounding. He pulled the ill fitting door till it closed, and was grateful for the slightly dimmer glare within than without. What on earth was that star?

Mary had stuffed her little finger into the baby's mouth, and the child was sucking mightily at it, gasping for air in between.
"He's hungry, and my milk hasn't come in yet. What shall we do? He's shivering from this cold." Mary started to weep. Her eyes stung from fatigue and it felt like needles under her lids.
"Here, take my cloak." Joe untied his outer garment and wrapped it round his wife's shoulders.
"But you will be cold!"
"Nevermind. The child must be kept safe. We've come too far to lose him. It will be warm once the sun comes up. We just need to get through this night, and I can almost see dawn on the horizon."

Joe helped his wife and child lie down in the corner furthest from the door, to be out of the draught. He went over and picked up the box of incense and the vial of myrrh, and for a moment paused over these strange gifts. He placed them with their few belongings, then went over to drag the feeding trough towards them also. He pressed his palm over the straw, to feel the gold hidden beneath. This will keep us going for a while, he thought. Thinking some more, he unearthed the velvet bag, took out the smallest nugget he could find, then put the rest away again carefully.
"This will buy us some food and milk in the morning." he said to Mary. She nodded, as he laid down beside her.

Joe held his wife and her child close to himself, willing what little body heat he had left in him to keep them warm. Both he and Mary should really sleep, but couldn't. From where she lay Mary saw the vial sitting in the half shadows and the dust, and drew her little son even closer, fear gripping her throat so she couldn't breathe evenly. For reasons never quite known to herself, she would keep that bottle in her home for the next thirty or so years, tightly wrapped in a thick old blanket and hidden under her bedspace. She never wanted to look at it again, but couldn't bring herself to throw it away either. Joe closed his eyes against the glare of the strange star overhead, its cold beam stealing in through the broken roof and slicing the icy air of the stable like a sword. A thought was gathering momentum in his head, which hurt so much now he was careful not to make any sudden motions. But he said to his wife,
"When day breaks, we have to go into town and register. Then I think we should head into the desert, towards Egypt."
"What? Why? We can't do that! I want to go home to my mother! The child is too young to be travelling..." Mary protested.
"No my love. It will be safer for us all if we do not go back. I just have this feeling that we have to hide away somewhere for a time." He winced at the sharp throb in his head.
"But where will we go? How will we live? And who will help me? I don't know what to do with this baby..." she started to cry again, now in earnest.
"I will help, I promise I'll do my best. I've been here for you and him all this time, haven't I? And we have this gold. I can sell the incense to the local synagogue, and it will bring in a bit more. Perhaps I can do some building work for a village somewhere. I have my skills, we'll get by."
"But my mother will worry. And Elizabeth my cousin has been waiting to see our child..."
"We will send word to them when we've settled. You must trust me in this. I just know this is the right thing to do, for his sake..."

At those words, they both peeped at the child, now finally asleep, with his small mouth still slightly puckering in search of milk. Mary touched its tiny cheek; it was so cold. They would never know that the baby's body was aching all over from the trauma of birth, that being slightly premature it was dangerously close to hypothermia. Each time he cried, the sounds lanced the ears of the creatures cowering nearby; for it was a cry that came from deep within the heart of the tired earth. It was a lament that wasn't hours but ages old, that carried the hunger of generations from every tongue and tribe. None who saw the child that night, except perhaps the old man who wept at his tiny feet, knew that it would be through the cries of this boy child that any hope would come.

Finally the small family drifted into a fitful sleep through what remained of the night. The huge star above faded with the approach of dawn's first light, and the last echoes of that strange song in the clouds also evaporated with the morning dew. All the beasts in the stable were grateful too for the short respite when humans were no longer a threat. Donkey wanted to bray, but thought the better of it, and laid his weary head by the upturned water bucket.

Thus, unto us a child was born.