The Botanist--An Experimental Chapter (Shortened)

The first thing he had learned in life was how to gag. Not what you would expect in a babe only minutes from the warm safety of his mother’s womb, but a solid truth still the same. As he was pushed out into the world, the cold, sanitized hands of a nurse gripped his ankle tightly, helping to pull him free. What the nurses and his parents thought was choking and a loss of breath was actually his first time experiencing human contact.

Repulsion had filled his body and soul to the very brim, shaking up a volatile mixture of emotions that erupted in the form of blood-curdling screams, fitful kicks and useless punches, and an uncontrollable activation of his gag-reflex. His mother, concerned he was either extremely ill with moments left to live or knew the nurse was not his mother, had taken him and held him as tightly as her delicate body could manage. Even then, he fought her, spitting up between wide-eyed shrieks. Not his mother and father, nor his younger brothers and sister, nor even his grandmamma could so much as touch him, let alone hold him.

Left in the crib, his family wept for his inevitable death that had yet to occur. However, it was his nursemaids who did the most work to keep him alive. It seemed his parents didn’t have much motivation when it came to something--and apparrenty someone--who had little to no chances. His nursemaids would gather around in their sleeping quarters in the basement of the manor, laying out large pieces of parchment and gathering up snubs of charcoal from the fireplaces around the house. From then on they would plan; things that would help them feed, bathe, clothe, and soothe him without ever touching--and therefore disrupting--him. One of their first and best inventions was a crude long-reaching clamp that consisted of a long wooden rod with an old, rusting iron clamp. The ‘jaw’ piece--the piece at the end that moved up and down--had a long piece of twine tied to it, which the designated nurse would use to give him and retrieve his bottle.

As time went on, however, it became apparent that--though he was, indeed, surviving--he was not doing so well enough. His parents, realizing doctors and psychicians would not be able to cure his queer condition, called in aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews from every corner of the world in a desperate attempt to find someone--anyone--their son might bond with. It was like a frantic fairytale, his family spreading out metaphorical fingers to grasp whoever they could, pulling them to their home to see if their sickly son would accept their touch. It was one particular aunt—one of nearly hundreds, it seemed—who managed to woo him into accepting her presence.

Tall, slender, and elegant, Aunt Vivianna was infamous for her seclusion, avoidance of religion, and hatred for the species in which she was categorized. A last choice for his mother—no one understood why; they seemed the perfect match—ended up as the ‘happily ever after’ for him. That’s not to say that he and his Aunt bonded instantly—in fact, it was quite the opposite.

He sensed her presence acutely, even as a baby in the crib. She leaned against the doorway to his nursery, chin lifted as her observing gaze pierced his small body. Her thumb—on her left hand, he believed—would pick at the rim of a silver band on her middle finger, the action-of-habit releasing a small tinkling sound with each motion. The sound was constant; a wretched annoyance to his sensitive ears at first. She would stay for an hour or two, hardly moving, until he lost interest in her and quit his screaming. Aunt Vivianna never bothered to move aside for nurses, doctors, or his parents when they came to the doorway, keeping her eyes hooked to him until something from deep within her mind pulled her away. As suddenly and darkly as she appeared, she would leave.

This went on for a month, her slim form manifesting at his doorway for a few hours before receding back into the blackness of the hallway. It came to the point of where he didn’t bother to cry anymore; why make an effort to scream when she was just going to stand there anyways, no matter what he did?

On the first day of the second month, she came at the same time as usual, but moved to a spot that was alarmingly closer to him than her old place. Halfway between the doorway and his crib, she would lean against a protruding corner of the wall—his nursery was shaped sort of like an L, or even a check-mark, with his crib in the corner parallel to the spot where the wall dipped inwards. Crossing her arms, she would tilt her head up to look down on him, dull red hair pinned up in a loose bun, bangs falling in lazy waves as they cupped her face.

Five feet, seven inches, three centimeters closer than before, he protested in the form of squeals, fits of infant rage, and compulsive gagging that lasted for two weeks. He would rear his head with as much strength as he could manage, curling his tiny lips to bare non-existent teeth at her with such a raw ferocity, she smiled. A genuine, soft smile that quieted him for a few moments before it faded from her lips and his struggling began again.

Slowly, day after day, she inched closer. It alarmed him in a similar fashion to a rabbit watching a starving hound drool as it inspected the rabbit’s den. Raised-heel shoes clicked on the wood floor, her movements graceful and elaborate as she picked her way across the room. As cold air sifted through the nursery, late autumn slowly morphing into the dark chills of winter, her warm presence found itself hovering next to his crib.

His mother and father watched in disbelief as his Aunt reached out a weak hand to stroke his cheek. Strangely, he felt her power as it streamed through her blood; he could taste the dominance, and knew he had lost. It was a warm feeling, having an alpha figure. Someone who had tamed his soul, and who had complete control over him. He knew this to be true, for he felt the submission from the depths of his miniature soul.

When his parents realized the only cure they had needed from the very start was patience and a day-by-day approaching technique, they thanked his Aunt and attempted to persuade her from taking him with her to her home in the mountain city Chyot. No matter what their offers promised, she turned them away; the original bargain counted on no one being able to hold him without him vomiting immediately. Since his Aunt could pick him up, cradle him in her slender arms, and have him rest peacefully, she had won. He was hers, and that was all. The papers were signed, his very few things were packed, and he was taken from his parent’s custody.

On the ride back, he could faintly recall her uttering interesting words: “Never gamble your own, for then you would have lost part of yourself.”

Even with his petite mind, so undeveloped and innocent, he understood her words, and could comprehend the reasons for which she took him from his parents.