Beautiful

What is the most beautiful thing in the world?

If you asked Jyn, whose brown hair was often pulled back into pig tails, and whose glasses were always slipping down her nose, she would count not one, but three items off her hand:

“Elephants, storybooks... and fire!”

Of course, Jyn never knew true beauty, until she met her baby brother.

Within the community in which she lived, the High Council regulated everything: from tomorrow's weather forecast, to the meal portions rationed out to each household, even the number of children for every family. Nothing was out of the ordinary- everything was to be the same. Jyn was taught never to question, for the laws of the High Council were absolute. They ‘maintained peace and prevented war’, as Jyn was taught over and over in school; although, she still didn't quite understand what was meant by ‘war’.

The High Council didn’t see the beauty in anything- the strictly white garments worn by every community member made this glaringly obvious; yet Jyn found her escape through the magnificent view provided by her bedroom window. The council-administered bonfires on the wheat field were beauty in its brightest form. Their searing light and morphing shades of ember were enchanting. For that one special night a week, Jyn would stay up for hours, waiting for the tiniest spark to fade from her line of sight before she allowed herself to submit to a dark sleep.

"Father, what are the bonfires for?"

"Ah yes, the bonfires," Father echoed, a hint of musing in his tone. "They are for disposing of wastes, my dear Jyn. Rubbish."

Rubbish?

"But Father, aren't all our wastes recycled? Where does that rubbish come from?"

"The hospital, my dear Jyn."

The hospital seemed to be the bane of Jyn's existence, for the waiting room she and her Father sat in now veered far from beauty.

It was a very long room, where blank walls stretched down as far as she could see, as if you could walk down the corridor for years and never reach the end. The dull, white paint and symmetrical architecture made it so that if there were absolutely nothing in the hallway, and she flipped her head upside down, she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the floor and the ceiling. Who decided to decorate the most exciting room in the world, where new lives began and old ones changed forever, with the colour of ceramic bathroom tiles?

If only someone made these walls the colour of fire, then maybe I wouldn’t be so bored.

Jyn was told the news a bit more than nine months ago. She had arrived home from school earlier than usual; the older boys had chased her all the way home, threatening to pull on her pigtails if they caught up. By the time she arrived, she felt like she was going to faint, and her hand slipped numerous times while turning the door handle, courtesy of her sweaty palms.

The interior of her home was as plain as the clothes she wore- no bright spectrum of colours, no paintings or murals. Just as the High Council liked it. Mother and Father stood up from the dining table as she entered. Enormous grins crossed both of their faces, expressions that Jyn would try hard to recall in the future, for she wouldn't seen them smile again in a long time.

“Jyn, we have news,” Mother began. “Big news.”

Jyn dropped her school bag on the floor and skipped over to her parents, containing a new excitement.

“What is it? Are we getting an elephant?” she asked eagerly.

Father chuckled: “My dear Jyn, you know that elephants are not real.”

“You’re getting something even better.” Mother knelt down, her captivating eyes wide with delight. “A new baby brother!”

Four months later, Mother was called to the hospital for a check-up. This was also the day that Mother and Father’s happiness seemed to wither; the last remaining flames of a bonfire, sizzling in the ashes. Jyn had been so caught up in her own joy that it was only when she came by her parents’ room and heard them talking in hushed whispers that she noticed something was wrong.

“-disaster! When I applied for the injection, they assured me-” Mother whispered, clearly furious.

“-said it happens now and again-” Father tried to reassure her.

“-assume we’d only get one-”

“Mother? Father?” Jyn called, pushing the door further open. They turned to her, startled by the sudden interruption. “I’m going to sleep now."

Quickly regaining their composure, Jyn’s parents both presented smiles that Jyn deemed not exactly right. Father's was too stretched, like someone was pinching his cheeks. Still, Jyn may have been oblivious if not for Mother's, which contrasted her startling gaze. As Jyn went to hug her, and Mother struggled to bend down due to her swollen stomach, Jyn stared into her bloodshot, glistening eyes.

She wondered now, sitting in the waiting room, if the pregnancy was the cause, or if she had accidentally poked herself in the eyes, as Jyn had done many times.

A sudden commotion startled Jyn out of her reverie. Down the hall, nurses were spilling out of the room, crowding around a waiting family, and coming from inside the ward was a strangled wail. It reminded Jyn of the sound that she wanted to make when the boy from next door bullied her incessantly about her glasses. The family was ushered inside, and the doctors slammed the door behind them. Father next to her began jittering nervously.

Why was this place so miserable? Jyn wondered why on earth someone would be so sad over a baby, of all things.

She didn’t have time to ponder the possibilities though, as a short while after, Mother’s door finally opened. Jyn burst to her feet, yet rather than meeting a bundle of joy, a nurse with a stern gaze appeared in the doorway instead. She wore a surgical mask and blue overalls over her normal clothes. This alarmed Jyn momentarily, for it was against the rules to wear the wrong attire. She had seldom seen anyone authorised to disregard the High Council's laws.

“It’s time,” was all she said.

Jyn’s face lit up with joy. She was going to see her brother at last!

Yet Father turned to her. “I’m sorry, Jyn dear, but you can’t come in. You have to stay here.”

And just like that, her elation vanished. He walked into the room, the nurse closing the door behind him. A million voices echoed in her mind, scrambling to recall if she had done anything to deserve such cruelty. Jyn just stood there, staring incredulously at the closed door, which she now viewed as an insult.

How rude! She thought, huffing with fury. This is so unfair!

So, instead of returning to her seat like she was told, Jyn let her impatience get the better of her. She crept over to the door, twisted the handle slowly, and peered through the small gap. Doctors obstructed her view at first, all of them crossing the room back and forth, too busy with their individual tasks to notice the tiny spy. Jyn could make out Father through the fuss, hunched over a bed and talking to someone. Her eyes widened when she realised it must be Mother.

But... What about the baby? Why isn’t Father with him? Is Mother hurt?

As Jyn watched, Father was called over to a corner of the room, where two nurses stood. They seemed to be carefully cradling an object each, both covered in blankets, almost as if the objects were...

A small memory echoed in her mind- one of the boys in the school playground had told the story of a mother who gave birth to six children at once. Or was it seven? Nevertheless, Jyn wasn’t one to believe such a silly tale- no mother could deliver more than one child at once, it was impossible! And even if it was true, the High Council certainly wouldn’t allow it.

The more Jyn witnessed the events that unfolded, the more confused she became. Father nodded to the nurses and returned to Mother’s side. Jyn’s eyes followed one of the nurses, who took her object into a smaller room, while the other handed the second off to another doctor. Jyn was just able to peer through the convenient, small window in the door that led to the small room, but only when she stood on her tiptoes.

The nurse laid her object down, unraveled the blankets and lifted up a miniature tool, of which Jyn couldn’t recall the name. It wielded a long, slender, menacing point, as if just looking at it could pierce skin. Clear liquid dripped from its tip as the nurse pushed down on the end of the tool, drops of the substance resembling a thick venom that laced the teeth of the monsters Jyn had read about in her storybooks.

Then the nurse's raised hand descended to where the object lay.

Before she could stop herself, Jyn gasped at the confronting sight, exposing herself to a nearby doctor. Whilst he froze in a second of shock, Jyn was able to catch a glimpse of the nurse in the small room dumping the mystery object through a chute in the wall. She jumped back as the door slammed in her face.

Whatever was going on, Jyn just wished that the baby was okay.

~

Indeed he was. Three months later and baby Aro was better than an elephant could ever be, not that she would know.

He had innocent, chubby cheeks that felt like pillows to the touch; his aura of purity never failed to brighten her day, even when school had been especially upsetting; and of course, his tiny, fragile fingers that Jyn loved to wiggle as she made cooing noises brought a toothless smile to his adorable face.

The night that he had come home for the first time was when Jyn realised Aro was the most beautiful thing in the world. It wasn’t elephants- for they weren't real, of course- or storybooks, or even the brightest fire. It was this small, effortlessly beautiful baby.

Jyn thought that Mother and Father would return to normal after Aro’s birth, yet, Jyn didn’t think it was normal for mothers to skip dinner time to cry themselves to sleep. After all, she had brought a new life into this world!

"Father, why is Mother so upset?"

Father sighed, speaking without his usual reassurance or care. "Pregnancy has simply taken its toll."

Together, Aro and Jyn looked out from Jyn’s bedroom window onto the wide, wheat field, admiring the night sky and the familiar orange light flickering in the distance, looking much bigger this time around. Jyn noticed, for the first time, two figures walking back and forth from the chute that protruded from the side of the hospital. They were carrying objects from the chute and tossing them into the bonfire.

They are for disposing of wastes, my dear Jyn. Rubbish.

The fire would build height, as if bursting with happiness that its hunger had been satisfied and its work of turning things rotten into something magnificent was fulfilled. Smoke billowed skyward, savouring its freedom.

“Hey, Aro,” she whispered. “Look! That’s ‘fire’. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Yet despite its beauty, baby Aro began to cry.