SOPHEEA: II

Alexander Thomas Abbott was born at exactly midnight on Halloween, 1980. He had the same amber eyes as his father, and the brown curly hair of his mother. He had a distinct tiny birth mark on his left cheek that resembled the boot of Italy. He was perfectly healthy and perfectly perfect in every way. When he was born, he didn’t make a single sound. He simply gazed at everything around him in awe while utterly fascinated and confused at the same time. And from the very moment that Alex entered this world, it was obvious that he was going to live an extraordinarily unusual life.

To start with, Alex was not born in a hospital or under any sort of usual conditions. He wasn’t born premature or late, and he wasn’t born during some sort of life-threatening random act of the universe. He wasn’t born in a car speeding down the highway, or in the living room of one of the many houses the Abbott’s owned. He wasn’t born during a blizzard in a cabin in the woods, or even on the side of the road in the middle of the desert. Believe it or not, the conditions in which Alex was born are far more unusual than any of those.

When Mrs. Abbott first learned that she was pregnant with Alex, she had refused right then and there to make any doctors’ visits during the pregnancy. Could you imagine the combined hours spent driving to the doctor’s office, waiting to get called back to see the doctor, actually seeing the doctor, and then having to drive all the way back to the office? Over the course of nine months, that would be an unacceptable amount of time not spent working. 20 hours and 17 minutes to be exact, according to her calculation. But she was certain there was a variable or two she hadn’t considered which would only increase the result and thus lead to even more wasted time.

With this discovery, Mrs. Abbott had decided to renovate her office at work to include a nursery and mini-ER to accommodate all her required checkups while she was pregnant with Alex and to deliver Alex when the time came. She had also arranged to keep a doctor on-site and on-hand 24/7 in case anything happened.

The additions to her office allowed Mrs. Abbott to work during her checkups with the doctor. This meant she could maximize work time the most efficiently; however, it also led to some odd interactions in the workplace. There was a particularly interesting meeting a couple of weeks ago where Mrs. Abbott had to fire an intern for getting her lunch order incorrect (he ordered Swiss cheese not Cheddar). Understandably, the intern wasn’t sure if she was playing a prank on him or not because Mrs. Abbott was also in the process of getting an ultra-sound in the middle of her office.

In addition to all of that, the expansion that Mrs. Abbott had wanted meant tearing down the eastern wall of her office for the extra space. This wouldn’t have been a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that Lisa, Mrs. Abbott’s assistant of ten years, worked in the office opposite that wall and was now shoved into a corner that barely fit her or her desk. Lisa not only had to triage the hundreds of daily emails and phone calls directed to Mrs. Abbott, she now had to deal with being thoroughly distracted by the BEEPS and BOOPS from all the medical equipment that surrounded her as well.

When Lisa mentioned how difficult it was to hear over all the different sounds from the medical equipment during her latest performance review, Mrs. Abbott simply replied, “Sorry, Dear. We’ve all had to make sacrifices. If you cannot keep up with your work, I totally understand if you need to resign and I appreciate your assistance thus far.”

At Brickman and Saks, Mrs. Abbott was the only person who could ever get away with converting their office (and most of Lisa’s) into a nursery/ER. One benefit to being Mrs. Abbott was being married to Mr. Abbott. All the renovations and medical equipment that Mrs. Abbott required for her office expansion was provided free of charge by A.R. Labs. Having Mr. Abbott as a husband was only one of the reasons why Mrs. Abbott was able to get away with all these renovations. The other reason was the fact that Mrs. Abbot was… well… Mrs. Abbott. Brickman and Saks would let Mrs. Abbott get away with murder if it meant keeping her around. And quite literally too, there was a case a while back where… well, best to not get into that right now…

Of all the unusual things surrounding Alex’s birth, one of the most unusual aspects was the timing at which it happened. Mrs. Abbott was in the middle of a very important quarterly earnings call when, much to her annoyance, she went into labor.

It was quite an extraordinary meeting. At one point, Mrs. Abbott had thrown her cellphone at the doctor, hitting him square in the forehead. She had been explaining a particularly intricate chart to the board when the doctor had interrupted her by encouragingly saying, “Push! Push! Come on, almost there!”

But perhaps the most unusual aspect of all this was how completely unfazed the attendees of the meeting were by all the commotion. It would seem that they too felt that missing work for such trivial matters was not an acceptable excuse and appreciated Mrs. Abbott’s dedication to the company by remaining on the call.

Luckily for the doctor, Alex came without any fuss at all. Mrs. Abbott was in labor for no longer than 15 minutes. After making sure that Alex was breathing and in good health, the doctor went to hand Alex to Mrs. Abbott for the first time. She took Alex into her arms and gazed into his tiny amber eyes and said, “Mr. Abbott’s eyes, of course. And… oh, what is this little smudge on his cheek? Doctor, did you miss a spot while cleaning him?”

“Umm, that’s not a smudge, Ma’am.” The doctor said hesitantly. His forehead was now supporting a large swollen red mark the shape of a cellphone which he was gently rubbing. “That’s a birth mark.”

“Hmm…” Mrs. Abbott said thoughtfully as she continued to examine the tiny bundle in her arms.

The doctor stood in silence hoping she wasn’t about to blame him for a perceived imperfection on her son’s face and throw another object at his head. Or worse, force him to resign in disgrace. The thought of the former made him subconsciously turn his body and lift his shoulder slightly as to block any projectiles that might come hurtle towards his face in the very near future.

Mrs. Abbott finally said, much to the doctor’s surprise, “It’s cute.” And she gently rubbed the little boot with her thumb and scrunched her face at her son. “Very well then. Thank you, Doctor.”

She kissed Alex lightly on his forehead and gently caressed the top of his little head. She handed him back to the doctor and continued with her meeting as if she didn’t just give birth in front of all the attendees 20 minutes prior. The meeting ended an hour later on a very high note, and the board members—as usual—were extremely pleased with everything Mrs. Abbott had to say.

A couple of hours had passed since the quarterly earnings call  ended when Mrs. Abbott was finally ready to tuck in for the night. Alex lay in the nursery sleeping peacefully and kept warm by a light blue blanket with dark blue lettering on it which read, “A.R. Labs, we’ll do that for you!” An extremely realistic human-like arm attached to his crib was softly rubbing his back, and a gentle feminine voice from just under the crib was humming a nursery rhyme.

From the other side of the giant office, Mrs. Abbott couldn’t make out what exactly the crib was humming. Most of the medical equipment was now in the center of her office after having been moved  there during the quarterly earnings call. With all the BEEPING and BOOPING, Mrs. Abbott couldn’t hear anything clearly from that far away. She couldn’t help but to be suddenly reminded of Lisa for some reason, but couldn’t possibly think of why.

She walked over to her desk where she opened the top-left drawer, lifted a flap from within, then pressed a button. It made a satisfying clicking sound and a cheery deep male voice said, “What will it be this morning, Mrs. Abbott?”

“Bed, king. Two pillows… “Mrs. Abbott began, “…Thin blanket. Alarm set for four hours from now, and… fan on low please.” The desk replied, “You got it!” then the drawer closed and the desk sank beneath the floor. The sounds of belts and gears could be heard for a few seconds before, from where the desk once was, slowly rose a king-sized bed with two pillows on it and a thin pink blanket with sliver writing on it which read, “I’d rather be working.”

Mrs. Abbott, who had gotten out of her work cloths and showered over an hour ago by now, had climbed into bed. There was a small compartment on one side of the bed which Mrs. Abbott reached for. She waved her hand over the compartment, a faint red light flashed, then the top of compartment slid open. Inside was a little bottle full of emerald-green liquid with a label on it that read:

A.R. Labs Pharmaceuticals Total Work Tonic:

Ever miss a deadline for an important project at work? Ever wish you had more time during the day to work? Ever regret having to sleep at night when you could be working instead? Three drops of A.R. Labs Pharmaceuticals Total Work Tonic allows the body to fully rest and energize with only four hours of sleep a night! With our patented genetic restructuring proteins, your body’s cells can heal faster than ever before so you can sleep less and work more!

- A.R. Labs Pharmaceuticals, You’re Welcome!

Mrs. Abbott untwisted the cap of the bottle and removed the dropper attached to it. She measured out three drops worth of tonic, tilted her head back, then squeezed the dropper until the bright green liquid fell on her tongue. After all three drops were expelled from the dropper, she twisted the cap back onto the bottle, then placed the bottle  into the compartment. The top of the compartment slid shut, then she laid down and pulled the pink blanket over her.

She gazed across the office for a few seconds allowing a large grin to cover her face before slowly closing her eyes. A little sensor in the corner of the office made a small chirp sound and all the medical equipment that was BEEPING and BOOPING a second before turned off and her office went dark.

Brickman and Saks had their best quarter in the last ten years, and it was all thanks to her. At that moment, there was nothing in the world that could have made Mrs. Abbott any happier than knowing that little fact.