Monday, 20 October 2014

The Unborn Children


          A long time ago a young woman was walking towards down a road alone. She was pregnant and in her last month. Right now she was looking for a place to stay and have her child there. “Don’t worry my baby,” she said, rubbing her tummy, “everything will be okay, mummy will protect you. But right now I don’t know where we should go”.

          Suddenly she heard a noise; it sounded like a baby was crying. “Is there a baby out here?” The woman followed to the sound of the crying. But she didn’t see or find any baby, all she found was a big old building. “That seems a nice place to stay for a while” she said. She knocked on the door of the building. An old man opened the door. “Please excuse me sir,” said he woman “but do you mind if I rest here for a while? I have been traveling all day”. “Of course, come on in ma’am”. The man introduced the woman to his wife and both of them were kind. The wife gave the woman something to eat. “I take it your baby will be coming soon?” asked the husband. “Yes, my baby may come any day now” answered the woman, rubbing her tummy. “I must ask dear,” said the wife “why would you be travelling a long way, while you are still with child? It’s not really safe to travel a lot, while you still have a baby inside of you, sometimes”.

          The woman explained her story; she used to be a maid to a rich family. She had no family and the mansion she worked at was her only home. But one day the eldest son came home drunk and he raped her. The son ended up in disgrace and ended up punished. As for her, she was fired from being a maid. The master and mistress feared that the story of the rape would spread if the woman stayed to they drove her out to keep it a secret. “Is the baby you are carrying the son’s child?” asked the husband. “Yes,” answered the woman “but I never told anyone. I feared that they would do something terrible to my child if I did. So I left that area to keep my child safe and so I could raise it myself”. “I understand you perfectly,” said the wife “we have had children too and we did everything we could to keep them safe”. The couple’s children were adults now and they had all moved away.

          The woman asked the woman if she could stay at their place for a while and give birth there. The couple agreed and the wife offered to help her give birth and the husband said he knew where a midwife was and would be ready to get her. The woman thanked the kind woman with all her heart. Just then she told the couple about the strange baby’s cry she heard, before she arrived. The man explained that he and his wife had also heard strange cries. “The truth is this place used to be a brothel” he said. “That’s right,” said the wife “and apparently we were told, before we moved here, a lot of babies died here”. “Were they stillborn?” asked the woman. “Well the owner of the old brothel, who is now dead, did say to us that they were,” said the man “and it seems their spirits still haunt this place. And the scariest thing is; before the owner died, they say that she had kept on seeing the spirits of the babies”. The woman was astonished by the story.

          That night the woman was asleep in one of the rooms. But she was not alone. A man had crept into her room and was staring at her. He had a dagger in his hand and was just about to stab her. But suddenly the man was grabbed by a lot of little hands and he was strangled to death. The man screamed and then dropped down dead.

          The woman woke up from the scream and discovered the dead man’s body, and then she screamed next. The old couple ran into the woman’s room. “Are you okay?” the wife asked, running to the woman. The woman pointed to the dead man. “Oh my goodness!” gasped the wife “who is that?” The husband, who held a lamp, stared at him. “I’ve heard of this man,” he said “he is a murderer who finds killing woman fun”. “That is disgusting!” said the wife “you better get the police at once dear”. “I will” said the husband, and he left to fetch the police.                              

          Soon the police arrived and took away the body. The woman said to one of the policeman that she didn’t see anything; she just woke up from his screaming and just saw him lying there. Another policeman, who inspected the dead man’s body, did make that the murder was strangled, but it looked like that it was also scratched. “Well if you ask me,” said the man “I’d say that the one who killed the murderer was a man of justice, because he protected the woman from being murdered”. The wife and woman agreed. Soon the police left, with the dead body.

          Not long after the police left, the woman felt pain in her stomach. “I think my child is coming now” she said. The wife held onto the woman and told her husband to fetch the midwife at once. While the husband was getting the midwife, the wife helped the woman onto a bed, got a lot of towels out and held onto the woman’s hand. “Don’t you worry dear,” said the wife “I’m here with you”. The woman was grateful. Soon the husband and the midwife arrived. The midwife asked the husband to boil a lot of water and asked the wife to continue holding the woman’s hand. The woman was in a lot of pain, while in labour. The midwife and wife helped her the whole way through and kept on encouraging her to not give up. Hours later she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. The midwife cleaned the baby up and wrapped her into a blanket. The wife held onto the baby to give it to the woman, but the woman had collapsed from exhaustion. The midwife checked her pulse. “She’s okay,” said the midwife “just very tired, but we better keep an eye on her till she wakes up, just in case”.

          While asleep, the woman was dreaming. She was dreaming that she was in the past, when the building was a brothel. The woman saw a lot of women in a room and she saw the owner of the brothel too. The owner was shouting at the women; the women were all pregnant and the owner was not pleased. Pregnant women were said to be useless in brothels. The woman saw in horror that the pregnant women were all having abortions. And what was more terrible was that some of the women were being punched on the tummies to get miscarriages. The woman screamed in horror, yelling “Stop it!”

          The woman woke up from her sleep in fright. The midwife and husband and wife rushed to her side and asked her if she was okay. The woman told the midwife, husband and wife about what she saw in her dream. They were horrified by that story. “It’s unforgivable!” spluttered the midwife. “Since the owner organised the abortions and miscarriages, it’s no wonder she was haunted by the babies when she died” said the husband. “I hope she is rotting away in hell” said the wife. “I have a feeling that it was the spirits of the unborn babies that killed that murderer,” said the woman “I think they did it to save me and my child”. “I think they must have done too,” said the husband “especially since you are one of those mothers who love their own child very much”. The woman smiled; she was lovingly holding her baby girl in her arms.

          The midwife looked thoughtful. “If you ask me,” she said “I think the spirits of the unborn babies are still here because of this place. I know it’s not a brothel anymore, but it is still the place where they were killed. So I don’t think that they will move on into the afterlife unless this place is destroyed”. The woman agreed with the midwife’s words, and then the husband and wife agreed too. “I want those babies to rest in peace in the afterlife,” said the wife “not wondering around in spirit form in this life”. The husband and woman wanted that too.

          So it was arranged; the old brothel building was destroyed and in its place was a little shrine dedicated to the unborn children. The wife and husband went to live with one of their children in another town. The woman lived a happy life with her daughter and in time she found a husband and had a son with him, so her life became happy in the end.

          The spirits of the unborn children were never again seen in the area, and they say that they waited for the husband, wife and woman for the day they would join them in the afterlife.