Eleanor

 Upon craving a chocolate bar, I came to the presence of the nearby supermarket : "Grocer’s". With it’s inviting neon headlights, and massive glass doors opening to an array of assorted items,one couldn’t resist. That usually explained the amount of people in there at any given hour. The shop was busy 24/7. As I felt my hair getting damper and damper, I went inside, murky water dripping from my coat.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

The workers stared at me in disgust for ruining their freshly sanitized floors.

“Go straight ahead and you’ll find it on your left.”

I felt my skin heating up and ran into the ladies’, clenching the end of my coat to stop more rain water from causing someone an injury. I’ll get the chocolate once I dry myself .

Lots of women were standing in front of the mirror, and at this given moment I couldn’t allow myself to start wiping my coat in front of everyone, and so I went inside an unoccupied bathroom stall, pretending that I was desperate. At that point all my surroundings were beginning to shut down and I was all alone in my thoughts , ignoring any noise so I wouldn’t panic. That was what I had taught myself to do and seemingly, it works. The laughter, chatter, footsteps, the ripping of toilet paper, the cleaner’s mop sweeping the floor, the sound of wallet clicks all disappeared in an instant. Other people in life didn’t really resemble anything to me, because most of the time, they were being a burden, provoking me in someway they didn’t even know about. They could be laughing on the street and I would develop an instant dislike to them, just because I wasn’t in the mood to hear any laughter. Ignore. Ignore.

After waiting out the 30 minutes it took for my hair and coat to dry to a tolerable state, I left the stall, surprised to not hear anything but the sound of the mob as it hit the ground behind me. Being someone with mesophonia, it really struck a cord in me. Either that, or I was scared the mob was an apparition trying to attack me just because of how loud the sound sounded in my head. I instantly ran to the aisles expecting to find other shoppers where I was safe… The other times, when I was more worried about my life rather than the sounds i’m going to hear, I would find other people to be a godsend of angels - like this time when I was afraid to be all alone in a vast place I wasn’t acquainted with.

The first thing I sensed was the cacophony of hail sandpapering the closed glass doors. As I quivered in response to the noise, I walked towards the white doors and pulled the handles- frightened. The door felt quite heavy and when I managed to get it halfway opened using both arms, it came to a halt as if it bumped something cushiony. At that instant a loud wail displaced me and when I looked down to see what I hit with the door, the shrieks all made sense. But the little newborn’s place did not make sense. Whoever it belonged to, I was not going to take it with me. My mesophonia cannot handle any baby noises and I couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. I was sending it to the authorities. I wrapped my cold hands around its head and carried it’s soft load with me. The baby was wrapped in a velvety blanket, it’s face red with cold. I covered my face with one arm and carried the tiny creature with the other, folding its blanket on top of its face. I ignored the shrieks, but I knew I wanted to feed it in case it died in my arms.

Running the five blocks home in a blizzard with a wailing baby definitely wasn’t what I wanted to be doing right now. After all,I expected myself to be watching television, enjoying my chocolate treat like I always did on a Friday night. I kicked off the heavy boots welcomed by the warmth of my one bedroom apartment. My efforts to dry up went to waste as the rain soaked me and the hail blistered my hands. There weren’t any people to give me a ride…I mean we were in the middle of a blizzard, no-one would be out the house right now, except me, the baby and whoever dropped it off.

I heated some water to make tea and wrapped the newborn’s plump body in an extra, dry towel as soon as I rang the police. No answer. Probably the bad connection because of the weather, i’ll try again in a few minutes. I kept my eyes on the child , as if my motherly instincts didn’t want it to choke on it’s own spit or fall off my neatly made bed. As much as I hated the sound of it’s crying or the way it hit the bed with it’s legs, I still found myself thinking of what the innocent creature could have done in this world. Why would anyone be so cruel as to leave a newborn abandoned?

When I realised I didn’t have any formula milk to feed the child, I left the house, (with the rain still pouring down), to ask my neighbour Martha who already has a newborn girl to lend me some. Yet when I rambled on the door in a hurry I didn’t get an answer. She would never leave the house and I would hear her newborn's wailing everyday. Except this time I couldn’t hear a thing behind her closed door. I noticed that the family's rain boots (which always stood against the welcome mat) were still there. They couldn’t have left. Or maybe they left before the blizzard even started, right when I left to the supermarket. I decided to ring the doorbell instead of knocking, yet when I placed my quivering fingers on the switch, it felt soggy like wet paper. I looked at what my forefinger had just touched. A sticky note that had barely survived the ongoing blizzard. On it, written in pencil were the words : “Take care of my daughter.” Maybe it was left for a babysitter.

No ,Martha never trusted her baby with anyone, in fact I’ve never even seen the newborn before. My thoughts suddenly recoiled to the baby I had laying on my bed. It was blonde like Martha once was. I shoved through my open door and still found it crying. As I looked at it’s face I noticed it had a dark birthmark covering half it’s forehead. Maybe that was her baby and Martha was embarrassed of how it looked that she never let me see it. I gulped my saliva, not realizing how long I kept my mouth open for. I had to check if it was a girl first. After I changed her diaper and replaced it with an old, clean T-shirt I was further reassured that the baby was Martha’s.

What confirmed it was a card hidden in the baby’s clothes. On the card was a rushed scribble of her address…I knew that because she was my neighbour.

Little Eleanor shrieked loudly.