Broken Memory

• Kaitlyn Savill, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2022

Every story begins somewhere. Some start in grand houses, in great, rich families. Some start in lowly towns, to families who have barely enough money to get by. But some stories start in the saddest of ways…
Yells and cries filled the halls of the hospital. They came from a room with white-washed walls. A woman’s cry. There were also the voices of nurses, begging the woman to push. There came a great scream, and then the cry of another; a baby. The mother’s laughter was the most joyful sound, as she held her newborn boy. The nurses wrapped the baby in towels and congratulated the mother on her beautiful child. Everything was joyous.
Until it stopped. The woman’s smile faded, and a veil of angry confusion came over her face. She demanded the nurses tell her why she was in a hospital, and why there was a mewling baby in her arms. She passed him to one of the nurses, and began to yell at the others. They eventually calmed her, and convinced her to at least feed him. They even convinced her to give him a name, Rodney. The woman was still angry, and told them to send the ‘wretched child’ away, to take it back to its mother. The nurses were distraught, even though they had known this would happen. They tried, in vain, to convince the woman that this boy was her child, but in a very short time, she had forgotten it all.
So little Rodney was taken to the nursery, and the nurses spoke to him in hushed, reassuring tones. But poor little Rodney was alone. His father had died in a car crash, the same crash in which his mother had become brain damaged, and he had no other family. All he had was his mother, who didn’t even know who he was, and would only remember he existed for half an hour at a time.