The Moses Stitch
But Susan wasn’t having that. Flash Fiction by Amy Barnes.
Terra was born with a horn poking out of her forehead. The nurses were amazed. The doctor was too. Terra’s mother Susan was less pleased, especially as the forehead horn grazed her insides, requiring an extra-large stitch.
“She really scraped you,” the doctor said, shaking his head.
Susan studied art before Terra was born unexpectedly. She told the doctor art history facts to distract from her postpartum pain.
“Did you know there are paintings of Moses with a horn too? It’s because the French word for horn was mistranslated.”
“This isn’t quite the same thing,” the doctor said.
After he was done, Susan called a birth photographer who came to the hospital in a black tent of a dress.
The photographer tried to pose infant Terra in the sterile shadows with her hospital cap pulled down.
“Can you add a gold halo afterward?” Susan asked.
“I think so,” the photographer said.
When the pictures came back, Susan focused on Terra’s brown eyes and long fingers. The horn was part of her daughter. She loved her as much as a non-horned child like it was simply an arm or a nose.
The photographer secretly mailed the photographs to their town’s newspaper, but Susan wasn’t having that. She sent a terse note to the editor and the story didn’t run.
Terra’s life was mostly normal, but there were differences. She wouldn’t nurse in a traditional way. Susan found herself on all fours, with her breasts hanging down. She didn’t know why she offered milk like that to her newborn, but it was instinctual somehow. Susan had read parenting books and was aware children ate mud and grass out of curiosity, but Terra refused all other foods when it came to solid foods.
The horn was part of her daughter. She loved her as much as a non-horned child, like it was simply an arm or a nose.
Terra crawled with her hands and feet, back arched, fingers and toes tightly together to better grip the ground. Susan often found her like that in the backyard or the park or on her parents’ farm, with her head back laughing.
When Terra had her first birthday party, Susan only invited friends and family. However, there were many uninvited guests that arrived as if Terra was the baby Jesus in a manger. A long line of lambs, kid goats, calves, and ponies came up their suburban driveway, wrapped gifts in their mouths and parents lingering nearby.
Susan baked an alfalfa-flavored smash cake, and everyone sang, brayed, or snorted their best wishes before running circles in the backyard paddock. There was obviously no “Pin The Tail On the Donkey” game. That felt like a step too far and the foal’s parents gave her a pleading glance when they arrived.
For the next four years, Terra’s life was happy outside of a few stares and whispers in the grocery store. There was fingerpainting and visits to the local art museum. When it came time for kindergarten, Susan set her down to explain school and that the other children might notice she was different.
Terra smiled as her mother packed a lunch of granola and sprouts.
“It’s okay, Mama. I’ll try my best.”
As Susan dropped Terra off for her first day, she smiled at the familiar trotting gait. She saw Terra swept her bangs to the side when she met another little girl. Susan felt an urge to run after her on all fours, but resisted because that’s what mothers do.
Amy Barnes writes and edits for a wide range of publications. Her third collection Child Craft was published by Belle Point Press in 2023.
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