Through high and low-pitched tweets, the birds converse over the new addition to the forest. The breeze brushes over the blooming sunflowers. Dandelion seeds float through the sky, while the smell of a recent spring shower wafts through the air. A deer grazes on some shamrock green grass, while two fawns stick close to the larger female deer. A white splotch in the shape of a feather lies on the rust red backs of one of the fawns.
The giggling baby stares up at the sky with gleaming green eyes. Her tiny hands reach forward trying to grab the puffy powdered white clouds. New, pure, and holy her hands show that the touch of her mother was gentle and kind. That touch was irreplaceable and incomparable to any other.

Little did the baby know that she was not born from her mother but grown. Grown from the heart of her selfless mother, she had been left here in this meadow all alone. Pink rosy cheeks hint at the smile that is plastered on this baby’s face. Her bare feet kicked in the air while the clouds showed her how to play peek-a-boo. The sun enveloped her in a warm embrace just as the wind blew across her chubby circular face. As she became sleepy so did the sun. The clouds said that they could take over from here to watch the little girl for whom they called their “little one.” The baby’s eyes grew heavy and her body lay still while the birds sang her a harmonic lullaby.

A woman cries by a tree. While nuzzled up in a ball, her rough cold hands hold her body together as if her heart was going to rupture. Her grieving face hiding from the open was resting on her bent legs. She snuffles and lets the tears roll down her cherry red cheeks towards her dimpled chin. The tear suspends from her chin like a droplet on a faucet. The tears fall down and land on her red and ragged sweatshirt. While questioning if she should go on with her life, she hears a soft crying in the background. The painful knot burns in her throat as she remembers her own child’s cry. Cry after cry the sounds stab her in the chest. Unable to withhold her emotions she violently stands up on her unstable legs that are trying to collapse beneath her. Running and tripping and falling. Running and tripping and falling. Incapable of picking herself up after the forth fall, she lies on a patch of dead hay like grass. Every tear falling from her face waters the lifeless pasture. Gaining enough strength to sit up, she takes in the magnificent surroundings.

“How can this place be the same world where horrifying things like death happen?” she thought.

Giggling. A discreet baby’s giggle rings in the crisp air of the fall sunset. Thinking it was from her imagination she starts to melt down. Suddenly a cry pierces the air. Jerking her head up, she now realizes that the sounds were not from her imagination but from an animate baby. She shoots up onto her feet to try to catch and glimpse of where this lost baby must be.

Unable to see anything she closes her eyes and focuses on the cry. Where was the panicked baby? She closes her left ear and turns her right side to the North, South, East, and West. The West. The sharp blades of dead wheat scrape her feet as she sprints towards the baby. Growing louder and louder, the sound now seems within a few feet of where she was standing. Turn. Look up, look down. Turn. Look up…there. A baby no older than four months old lies on her back on top of some black and white bird feathers. Her sour face melts into a calm state as the woman picks the bare baby up. Swaying the baby back and forth she begins to ponder the unknown. The unknown of the baby’s life. The unknown of the baby’s future. The unknown of what they were going to do or where they were going to go. Everything is unknown.