Alpha and Omega

Your Early Morning Freewrite — /3

A stood outside a delivery room in a hospital like any other. It was a relatively calm Sunday afternoon, but somebody was being born, a new beginning. Doctors and nurses rushed by, paying little attention to A. They assumed they were with the family of the woman giving birth in the other room, their screams snaking out from underneath the door and into the main hall. Her shrieks of pain and overjoyed release mixed with the faint electric ringing of telephones, of hospital workers, gently shutting doors, of flipping through papers clutching, of jokes and curiosities air of where everyone should get lunch or the day.

There was a moment of silence behind the door of the delivery room. A knew they felt the beat of a new heart. They pressed their cheek to the door, smiling. A sunny warmth filled A’s being as they stepped away to let the father inside. There were cries of adoration and happiness; a baby was born. The cycle began again — a new beginning.

Down the way, pass the vending machines and magazine racks, an elevator dinged. For a moment, the sliding doors hesitated, as if they were trying to resist whatever was about to exit. The physical world has only so much power against the inevitable. The hands of the clock, fixed above the elevator, stuttered. For a second, they appeared to stand completely still. Was this an internal malfunction, or had time suddenly stopped? Was that even possible?

A, still close to the delivery room door, jolted when screams of pain and horror erupted on the other side of the door. Visions of blood and panic, a great church on fire, and emptiness came to them. They felt lost with no hand to guide or voice to follow. They were utterly alone. A had never felt that before. All they knew was the excitement of starting something new.

Finally, the elevator doors slid open, the hands of the clock clicked forward, and O entered the hall. A slammed the handle to open the door and help the new mother, but the metal burned. They jumped back into the arms of O. They missed them, but merely let A rest there.

“Who are you?” A asked, swiveling around to face O.

“It always surprises me how your kind comes,” O said sheepishly. “There’s never anything similar about you. I got to hand it to us.”

A was too shocked or confused to say anything. They could only think of the mother, still yelling in the delivery room. As O and A gazed at one another, a doctor rushed by and through the door. A tried to enter with the doctor. O held them back. There was no resisting. A couldn’t move.

“For every beginning, there is an inevitable end,” O explained. “And a beginning does not guarantee time. That is not a part of our duties.”

A tried to pull away. They caught a glimpse of the mother. She was holding their newborn in her arms. Blood covered the pale white and blue body. Its eyes were glassy, staring up at the blank ceiling. The other doctors and nurses stood away as if afraid to go near the outpouring of grief.

“You did this,” A hissed at O.

“I did,” O nodded. “For us, when we are within the constructs of this time,” O pointed to a nurse on the phone behind a half-moon desk; at a repairman down the hall fixing a light; at a new door where another baby is being born, “are the comprehensiveness of God.”

“What does that mean?” A shouted. No one in the waiting room turned. No one even noticed. They were invisible to the human eye. “Tell me.”

A felt helpless. They felt their existence slipping into another definition. Was their end coming? Was this what it felt like to lose the feeling of one’s beginning? A opened their eyes to the world; the only movement they ever witnessed was someone else’s.

“We A,” O explained. “Are all that can be. We are not a guide for ourselves. Our path is set. The path we cater to is theirs.”

Down the hallway, a new father brought out their newborn with tears in their eyes. The baby’s cheeks were red and full of life. A brilliant light encased them. A felt their joy, their relief, and their desire to create a better future. They could feel it, almost like an invisible string transferring from themselves to the happy family.

“You are doing that, A,” O told them. “You are their beginning and all it encompasses.”

“Then, who are you?”

“For every beginning,” O repeated. “There is an inevitable end.”

O kissed A in the middle of their forehead, opened the door of the grieving mother, and disappeared.

Mitchell Duran is a writer of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He has been published in Black Horse Review, Drunk Monkey, The Millions, BrokeAssStuart, and more. He lives in San Francisco, California. Find more work at Mitchellduran.com