Day 696: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: naked baby

It had so happened in Big Loft, VA that a father, desperate to save his family from a house fire, had gotten into the house just as the fire had leaped onto his infant daughter's clothes. Dad had ripped the clothes off the baby just in time, and run out with the naked baby and put her on top of a little knoll safely across the street from the blazing building.

Dad had gone back to save other members of the family, but had been overcome by the smoke. Fortunately, by then, the fire trucks and paramedics had arrived, and the whole family was rescued.

However, the little baby girl had rolled right down the knoll in the soft grass, all the way to the back of the Rosewood Apartments, where she lay weakly crying when two keen-eared people walked home separately from work and found each other as well while searching for the crying child. Both had lost their infant children to natural causes, and so smiled upon finding each other as they found the child.

“Well, we are the police,” Mrs. Magdalena Thornton said to Captain H.F. Lee.

“I suppose so,” the captain said as he removed his jacket and wrapped it around the crying child.

“She's exhausted,” Mrs. Thornton said. “Needs water and milk – but she's a big, beautiful girl.”

“Surely some accident or incident has occurred,” Captain Lee said. “If you will see to the baby's needs, I will find out what has happened.”

“Okay – whoa!”

Mrs. Thornton tripped on a tree root, and Captain Lee reached out and steadied her – and there they were, a makeshift set of parents for the baby, who, now feeling secure in their shared embrace, stopped crying and began to settle down.

“That's amazing,” Mrs. Thornton whispered.

“Babies always know who cares about them,” Captain Lee said.

“I wonder if we ever really stop knowing,” Mrs. Thornton said, “but maybe we learn how to ignore what is best for us in order to get what we think we want.”

“Quite possible,” the captain said. “Perhaps that is why the Lord said we have to be born again.”

Mrs. Thornton adjusted her grip on the baby, and Captain Lee kept his arms around her until they had gotten safely to her apartment, where Mrs. Bell came with a thousand questions but also helping hands.

It took Captain Lee all of two minutes to scan the news reports and find the baby's family, and all of half an hour to get the baby to the hospital and to her family. Mrs. Thornton went with him, and both were kissed and hugged and celebrated for rescuing the child. They accepted it all graciously, and went home, Mrs. Thornton to apartment 313, Captain Lee to apartment 413.

“Who knows what can happen in the world!” Mrs. Thornton said to Mrs. Bell.

“I'll say – did you perhaps pay attention to how that gorgeous man was holding on to you holding that baby?” Mrs. Bell said.

“Oh, I had tripped and hurt my foot, and he was just making sure I didn't fall over, what with that big girl in my arms.”

“Cousin Maggie, wake up and smell the romance!”

“Cousin Margie, settle down and let's eat dinner.”