My birth was a total shock.
Doreen, the ample young woman who was suddenly my mother, didn't even know she was pregnant.
It happened during the last act of Shrek The Musical, plunging the Upper Circle and then the entire Palace Theatre into pandemonium. And I was the wrong colour. Not wrong in the sense of pale Mum/ebony babe
or vice versa, but wrong in being - in any and every light - green.
I was as green as Shrek, in stark contrast to the afterbirth. Parents in adjoining seats fainted. They had paid good money to bring pink or brown offspring to town, to see their emerald hero fight for the heart and hand of his princess; they were all set to cheer fairytale characters cruelly banished from home ... and now the theatre echoed to horrified cries of ‘It’s a freak!’ ‘Get it out of here!’ ‘Don’t look, darling!’ The safety curtain hastily came down. Staff dashed around like dogs on a flock. The theatre emptied.
A&E bustled us into a side-room. Doreen, too traumatised even to weep, was cleaned up, medicated, and made as comfortable as possible while a nervous sister washed me and an ashen-faced duty doctor embarked on a battery of tests.
‘Shouldn’t she be in Maternity?’
‘How would you feel if this frightful anomaly was wheeled in beside you?’
‘OK. Staying here then.’
‘How are we doing?’
‘Sex indeterminate. Blood ... I can’t cope with this ... totally green. No haemoglobin. Lab will have to tell us what else is in it. BP otherwise normal. ECG, oh dear, anomalous; we’re getting a sort of double trace ... we’ll have to do an MRI. Coccyx is odd; seems more prominent than usual. No hair, not even eyebrows. We have no way of knowing if this is delayed growth or a form of alopecia.’
‘Doctor Singh, whatever this child is, it needs to go on the breast. It needs to bond with its mother. Can we stop, please, and give ... it ... to - what is your name, dear?’
‘Doreen Sharkey.’ She could hardly speak.
‘To Doreen. Can you release your bra?’
‘But I haven’t any milk!’
‘Are you sure? Here, let me help you. There we are. Now take ... baby. See? He ... she ... wants to feed!’
Doreen screamed. No-one had realised I already had teeth. And I wouldn’t let go. There was milk, and I needed to grow.
The MRI scan sent the doctors into a spin.
‘Do you think we should notify the Home Office?’
‘Or Nick Pope?’
‘Or SETI?’
‘Or just keep this very, very quiet until we really know what’s going on. Here we have an infant born to a human mother but with a totally abnormal physiology. The green blood is pumped by two hearts. There appears to be the beginning of an actual tail. The bony structures are pneumatised like a bird’s, and all joints appear to have complete rotation. There are four lungs, and a stomach almost like that of a ruminant ... but we can’t know as yet how it functions. Most of the skin surface is very smooth - but seems a little scaly over the shoulder-blades. Teeth are unusually mature for a neonate ... poor mother! And the eyes - until they are open it is impossible to comment.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘Why not ask Doreen?’
My mother, now sedated, was sobbing.
‘Doreen? Can we talk?’
‘Mmm ...’
‘How long have you been carrying this baby?’
‘I don’t know! I didn’t know it was there!’ Her tears were soaking the hospital gown now inadequately covering her large, wobbly body.
‘Can you remember any occasion when someone ... something? ... might have taken advantage of you?’
‘The only thing I can think of was a dream I had. I’d been watching “E.T.” It was all about UFOs, and I went up in one. But it was just a stupid dream! Wasn’t it?’
‘Hard to say. But here you are now with an alien baby. And we have no idea what to do.’
‘I want to go home!’
‘With or without the child?’
‘It’s not a child! It’s a monster! You keep it. You deal with it. I want my life back!’
So much for mother-love. Doreen was mopped up, dressed, and taken home, where she locked and bolted all her doors and windows and hid from the world until her fridge was empty.
‘I’ll take him,’ said Sister Jones from Radiology. ‘I’ve seen the scans. I live way out in the sticks with no immediate neighbours. My partner is paraplegic, but always up for a challenge. We can bring up Baby and keep him ... her ... well away from the media and prying eyes, and maybe liaise with the SETI people. They really need to be told.’
‘If you’re sure?’
‘What other options do we have? Destroy the child? Unthinkable. No. Find some baby clothes and a Bounty pack, and with your permission I’ll run Baby home to Tintwhistle and have a long talk with Ray. I’ll update you as soon as I’m confident he’s onside, and then we can get onto SETI.’
So that’s what happened. I went to live with Ray and Shirley in their woodland farm cottage north of Glossop, and had regular visits from Pablo, a SETI astrobiologist, whenever he could get away from conferences and meetings to check on the progress of his very own, and alarmingly very real alien protegee.
I was definitely an androgyne. They called me Zee. As I grew, I was continually monitored. An EEG suggested a human brain but extremely busy in areas normally quiescent. My eyes opened normally, but were unusually large, with purple and yellow irises. I was ravenous; Shirley kept running out of formula and weaned me early. Then I ate everything given to me, and, once mobile, had to be restrained as nothing growing in the garden or surrounding woodland was safe. Creatures, however, became loved friends. I would be found curled up with the cat, or playing tag with foxes on the lawn. If I stood very still, dozens of birds would fly onto my outstretched arms and we sang together. The little scaly bumps on my back were imperceptibly swelling. By my 5th birthday I was as tall as Pablo.
And I was asking questions.
‘Why aren’t you green?’ ‘Why do you kill slugs?’ ‘Why don’t you eat my red mushrooms?’ ‘Why can’t I watch TV?’
TV would mean the Big Reveal. It was banned. I was getting plenty of basic tutoring from Ray, who had been a Primary school teacher before the air crash that took his legs, and Pablo opened my eyes to the marvels of the universe - but of the real 21st century world and its cultures I knew nothing.
And that’s the way it stayed. I was so tall by my teens that I needed an annexe to live in. Under my loose clothes the bumps were turning into wings and tail that began to stretch and move.
On my 18th birthday after the fuss of gifts and candles I went out onto the lawn to greet the birds ... and heard a voice in my head.
‘Time to leave,’
Who was that?
‘Time to stretch your wings, Zee.’
‘Who is that?’
‘I am your parent. Our mental connection is now secure, and we’re ready for action.’
To my mind came a vivid image; of a great green winged being, with infinite hope and love in its eyes.
‘Stretch your wings.’
I did. They cast huge shadows over the house and lawn. Shirley rushed out of the front door.
‘Ray! Ray! Help, Pablo! Zee is ...’
Flying. My wings took me high over the woods beyond the homes of my birds. Onward through evening sunshine to scattered clusters of buildings I never knew existed; then over mightier and mightier conurbations dazzling with lights and hectic with millions of pink and brown people.
‘Feed, Zee, and keep flying.’
I swooped downward toward a swathe of welcoming green, tore hungrily into the stems, leaves, blossoms of the gardens there; then rose into the sunset sky.
‘Follow the sun, my wonderful child! And wait for my word.’
The ever-strengthening wings took me over ... ‘cities, Zee,’ and beautiful mountains peaked in white; then there was endless blue ... ‘the sea, my child,’ and then less and less life-giving green as the lands below me parched, and fires raged, and dark people moved in swarms like ants and locusts, and as I dropped lower I heard the percussion of bombs and guns, the crying of brutalised women and children, a raging destruction that tore my soul.
‘Grow, Zee! Feed on the Light! Your will can fill the sky!’
I obeyed my parent. My wings reached from horizon to fiery horizon, illumined by the setting sun. Looking down, I saw all human motion cease. A great cry went up.’Allah!’ ‘Oh God!’ ‘Save us!’ A single missile pierced one pounding heart; it instantly mended.
‘There is hope for them now,’ my parent said. ‘You will very soon understand. Your life’s work has begun.’
...........................................................................................................................................................................
Doreen, the ample young woman who was suddenly my mother, didn't even know she was pregnant.
It happened during the last act of Shrek The Musical, plunging the Upper Circle and then the entire Palace Theatre into pandemonium. And I was the wrong colour. Not wrong in the sense of pale Mum/ebony babe
or vice versa, but wrong in being - in any and every light - green.
I was as green as Shrek, in stark contrast to the afterbirth. Parents in adjoining seats fainted. They had paid good money to bring pink or brown offspring to town, to see their emerald hero fight for the heart and hand of his princess; they were all set to cheer fairytale characters cruelly banished from home ... and now the theatre echoed to horrified cries of ‘It’s a freak!’ ‘Get it out of here!’ ‘Don’t look, darling!’ The safety curtain hastily came down. Staff dashed around like dogs on a flock. The theatre emptied.
A&E bustled us into a side-room. Doreen, too traumatised even to weep, was cleaned up, medicated, and made as comfortable as possible while a nervous sister washed me and an ashen-faced duty doctor embarked on a battery of tests.
‘Shouldn’t she be in Maternity?’
‘How would you feel if this frightful anomaly was wheeled in beside you?’
‘OK. Staying here then.’
‘How are we doing?’
‘Sex indeterminate. Blood ... I can’t cope with this ... totally green. No haemoglobin. Lab will have to tell us what else is in it. BP otherwise normal. ECG, oh dear, anomalous; we’re getting a sort of double trace ... we’ll have to do an MRI. Coccyx is odd; seems more prominent than usual. No hair, not even eyebrows. We have no way of knowing if this is delayed growth or a form of alopecia.’
‘Doctor Singh, whatever this child is, it needs to go on the breast. It needs to bond with its mother. Can we stop, please, and give ... it ... to - what is your name, dear?’
‘Doreen Sharkey.’ She could hardly speak.
‘To Doreen. Can you release your bra?’
‘But I haven’t any milk!’
‘Are you sure? Here, let me help you. There we are. Now take ... baby. See? He ... she ... wants to feed!’
Doreen screamed. No-one had realised I already had teeth. And I wouldn’t let go. There was milk, and I needed to grow.
The MRI scan sent the doctors into a spin.
‘Do you think we should notify the Home Office?’
‘Or Nick Pope?’
‘Or SETI?’
‘Or just keep this very, very quiet until we really know what’s going on. Here we have an infant born to a human mother but with a totally abnormal physiology. The green blood is pumped by two hearts. There appears to be the beginning of an actual tail. The bony structures are pneumatised like a bird’s, and all joints appear to have complete rotation. There are four lungs, and a stomach almost like that of a ruminant ... but we can’t know as yet how it functions. Most of the skin surface is very smooth - but seems a little scaly over the shoulder-blades. Teeth are unusually mature for a neonate ... poor mother! And the eyes - until they are open it is impossible to comment.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘Why not ask Doreen?’
My mother, now sedated, was sobbing.
‘Doreen? Can we talk?’
‘Mmm ...’
‘How long have you been carrying this baby?’
‘I don’t know! I didn’t know it was there!’ Her tears were soaking the hospital gown now inadequately covering her large, wobbly body.
‘Can you remember any occasion when someone ... something? ... might have taken advantage of you?’
‘The only thing I can think of was a dream I had. I’d been watching “E.T.” It was all about UFOs, and I went up in one. But it was just a stupid dream! Wasn’t it?’
‘Hard to say. But here you are now with an alien baby. And we have no idea what to do.’
‘I want to go home!’
‘With or without the child?’
‘It’s not a child! It’s a monster! You keep it. You deal with it. I want my life back!’
So much for mother-love. Doreen was mopped up, dressed, and taken home, where she locked and bolted all her doors and windows and hid from the world until her fridge was empty.
‘I’ll take him,’ said Sister Jones from Radiology. ‘I’ve seen the scans. I live way out in the sticks with no immediate neighbours. My partner is paraplegic, but always up for a challenge. We can bring up Baby and keep him ... her ... well away from the media and prying eyes, and maybe liaise with the SETI people. They really need to be told.’
‘If you’re sure?’
‘What other options do we have? Destroy the child? Unthinkable. No. Find some baby clothes and a Bounty pack, and with your permission I’ll run Baby home to Tintwhistle and have a long talk with Ray. I’ll update you as soon as I’m confident he’s onside, and then we can get onto SETI.’
So that’s what happened. I went to live with Ray and Shirley in their woodland farm cottage north of Glossop, and had regular visits from Pablo, a SETI astrobiologist, whenever he could get away from conferences and meetings to check on the progress of his very own, and alarmingly very real alien protegee.
I was definitely an androgyne. They called me Zee. As I grew, I was continually monitored. An EEG suggested a human brain but extremely busy in areas normally quiescent. My eyes opened normally, but were unusually large, with purple and yellow irises. I was ravenous; Shirley kept running out of formula and weaned me early. Then I ate everything given to me, and, once mobile, had to be restrained as nothing growing in the garden or surrounding woodland was safe. Creatures, however, became loved friends. I would be found curled up with the cat, or playing tag with foxes on the lawn. If I stood very still, dozens of birds would fly onto my outstretched arms and we sang together. The little scaly bumps on my back were imperceptibly swelling. By my 5th birthday I was as tall as Pablo.
And I was asking questions.
‘Why aren’t you green?’ ‘Why do you kill slugs?’ ‘Why don’t you eat my red mushrooms?’ ‘Why can’t I watch TV?’
TV would mean the Big Reveal. It was banned. I was getting plenty of basic tutoring from Ray, who had been a Primary school teacher before the air crash that took his legs, and Pablo opened my eyes to the marvels of the universe - but of the real 21st century world and its cultures I knew nothing.
And that’s the way it stayed. I was so tall by my teens that I needed an annexe to live in. Under my loose clothes the bumps were turning into wings and tail that began to stretch and move.
On my 18th birthday after the fuss of gifts and candles I went out onto the lawn to greet the birds ... and heard a voice in my head.
‘Time to leave,’
Who was that?
‘Time to stretch your wings, Zee.’
‘Who is that?’
‘I am your parent. Our mental connection is now secure, and we’re ready for action.’
To my mind came a vivid image; of a great green winged being, with infinite hope and love in its eyes.
‘Stretch your wings.’
I did. They cast huge shadows over the house and lawn. Shirley rushed out of the front door.
‘Ray! Ray! Help, Pablo! Zee is ...’
Flying. My wings took me high over the woods beyond the homes of my birds. Onward through evening sunshine to scattered clusters of buildings I never knew existed; then over mightier and mightier conurbations dazzling with lights and hectic with millions of pink and brown people.
‘Feed, Zee, and keep flying.’
I swooped downward toward a swathe of welcoming green, tore hungrily into the stems, leaves, blossoms of the gardens there; then rose into the sunset sky.
‘Follow the sun, my wonderful child! And wait for my word.’
The ever-strengthening wings took me over ... ‘cities, Zee,’ and beautiful mountains peaked in white; then there was endless blue ... ‘the sea, my child,’ and then less and less life-giving green as the lands below me parched, and fires raged, and dark people moved in swarms like ants and locusts, and as I dropped lower I heard the percussion of bombs and guns, the crying of brutalised women and children, a raging destruction that tore my soul.
‘Grow, Zee! Feed on the Light! Your will can fill the sky!’
I obeyed my parent. My wings reached from horizon to fiery horizon, illumined by the setting sun. Looking down, I saw all human motion cease. A great cry went up.’Allah!’ ‘Oh God!’ ‘Save us!’ A single missile pierced one pounding heart; it instantly mended.
‘There is hope for them now,’ my parent said. ‘You will very soon understand. Your life’s work has begun.’
...........................................................................................................................................................................