The Random Light

“Bloody random light!!” How was I supposed to know what it meant?” I cursed as I slammed through the double doors. The two police officers who had assisted me earlier wished me luck as I hastened away. Just moments earlier, I was buried in despair.

*The call had come whilst I was attending a two day conference on managing public estates. “Honey! It’s started!” How was it possible? Everything was looking fine and there was still another month to go! Eagerly I reached the Audi A5 to begin my journey.

My heart raced, and all thoughts were scrambled like eggs, as I exited the car park. Will he look like me? Will she look like me? Or will the child have its mother’s beauty? As I reached the car park barrier gate, my face straightened, as I suddenly wondered where the hell my parking token had vanished. Flushed, I felt around my pockets. “No, no, nooooo!” The sweat started to bead down my back as my hands returned back to each pocket I had previously searched. At last I found it, I slumped in my chair with relief, as I fumbled my token into the barrier before starting my eighty mile commute back to Oxford .

Images from the antenatal classes I'd attended flashed into my mind, like scenes from a horror movie, distorted into further gore, as I pictured my wife screaming in agony, alone. I drove faster and spurred my Audi on, like Ben Hurr on speed. I was twenty miles into the journey on the M4 when I recognised the light. It was low on the dashboard, and glowing red, I should have known by fact that it was red that it meant ‘death of car’.

My car fell silent apart from my tyres rolling on the tarmac and the wind which also was diminishing rapidly. The car behind was close to my car bumper, and flashing furiously which reminded me that as my car was stalled. Need to get out of the fast lane and onto the hard shoulder as quickly as possible.

After unsuccessfully trying to start the car I opened my car bonnet, and after looking, pacing, and looking and screaming, I finally crashed myself on the grass verge to drown in my fear and failure. Thankfully the police were passing and pulled over to check to see if whether I was in trouble.

And now, as I raced out of the hospital lift on the third floor, the thoughts of the nightmare journey were shunted far aside into insignificance for concerns for my family. “I am looking for my wife…. She's …. Labour… Mary…. Mary Merton?” The nurse understood my distress and calmly told me she was through the fourth door on the left.

I burst through the swinging door to see my wife, weary, sweaty, tired and smiling, with, what looked like an animated bundle of blankets, from which peered with eyes blue like Mary’s, the latest addition!