Hatched

…I told you, that we can fly,-
Cause we all have wings,
But some of us don’t know why…

INXS – “Never tear us apart”


Claire Finnegan worked in a maternity ward as an anesthesiologist.
It was her heart’s desire to help other women and lessen their pain.
Her own mother died when Claire was born.
In modern world, there are options mothers of the past did not have. Just a hundred years ago a woman couldn’t even dream about an epidural, and caesarians were not performed as well as they are today.
But, despite all the progress, its fruits were not available to all women. Some just didn’t have enough money to have proper care, or lived in a country where the medical institutions could not afford it.
And, above and beyond all, this terrible pain, which cannot be equaled to anything else, but hitting a man in his balls for 12 hours in a row or more, and multiplying it by  six or seven, - was believed by the majority of the population on Earth to be “natural”. Women were “designed” to bring children in the world like this, no matter if every second one used to die a miserable death just hundreds of years ago.
Claire studied anatomy. It was evident to her, that something is wrong here.
If something is meant to be, it shouldn’t cause so much suffering.
Despite all propaganda, she couldn’t help seeing one of the greatest misfits, ever.
However, under the pressure of a common opinion, that “every mom goes through this”, “keep a stiff upper lip – or you are a wimp, and your own kids are not dear to you”, “meds are bad for the newborn”, and many others, a lot of women consciously refused from any painkillers and preferred “natural” childbirth.
As a doctor, Claire could not, and would not try to go against the will of her patients. And, which is more important, it wasn’t her who made the decisions. Her job was to only give the kind and the dosage of drugs prescribed by someone else.
How often did she disagree with other doctors, often male, who didn’t seem to understand what’s going on and how much a patient needs comfort and compassion!
She will always remember her first experience of facing what would be her routine.
It’s a common practice to bring the medical students to maternity wards so that they can observe and help, if needed.
The fact, that no one ever asks laboring women if they want such interference or not, disgusted not only Claire, who was empathetic, but the women themselves.
She was left no choice, but to go with her classmates, - otherwise she’d have to forget about getting her diploma and actually working there.
So here they were, a half-dozen of scared embarrassed students, walking down the corridor, hearing the women screaming.
One of them noticed the students and started cursing; desperately trying to make it clear that she’s not a guinea pig and she will not get on that stupid chair unless “the mob of retards gets the fuck out of here”.
Claire walked away.
She took her doctor’s gown off and folded it so tight, that it fit in her purse. After doing that, she looked as an average person – probably someone’s relative. Everyone was kept pretty busy around her, and no one cared unless she’d start to make trouble.
A young girl, evidently in a lot of pain, attracted her attention.
The unfortunate one had already lost her voice, but no one was with her.
Claire ran up to the girl and grabbed her hand.
-What’s the matter? – she asked.
Apparently it was as clear as day that the matter is serious.
-Big child, - the girl moaned.
-Why don’t they do a caesarian??
The girl bent over before she could answer. She was on the verge of passing out.
-Please, kill me, - she cried, - I cannot take it any longer, - And kill this baby, if needed… I cannot stand it!!!
Claire looked around in search of a nurse, but didn’t see any.
-I’ll go get someone, - she told the girl and ran down the corridor.
At first, the nurses wouldn’t listen to her, saying, that the girl is just being hysterical and has to shut up before her baby choked. But, seeing Claire’s ID and hearing her threats to call the police on them, they quit neglecting their patient.
-Well, it’s too late for a caesarian – one of them said, yawning, after examining the poor woman.
-Why don’t you give her any treatment, then?
-It’s too late for an epidural, either.
-Just do something! Or let me do it for her.
-But, what can you do? It’s just her lot. All we can do is an extra oxytocin injection, which will speed up the process, but she’ll be all torn inside, and internal bleeding may be lethal. We can squeeze the baby out of her and do the episiotomy.
The mother-to-be looked really bad. She seemed not even to understand what the people around her were talking about.
After the doctors put her on the table, Claire held her hand again and stroked her hair, wet with sweat, saying that she’ll be allright. It was hard to believe, and the young student felt tears streaming down her cheeks.
In the end, she gave up trying to be cheerful and wept, - which was not professional, of course.
-I’ll be with you, till the end, - she whispered, - I will not leave you. Just please don’t die!
The girl seemed to regain consciousness and looked at Claire with great surprise.
-I’d rather be dead now, - she said faintly, before getting out of breath.
She could not scream anymore.
Her eyes were bloodshot, her lungs failing.
It was time to push, but she had no strength left.
The doctors yelled at her and slapped her cheeks angrily.
-Toughen up! You didn’t mind sleeping with your boyfriend, now it’s time to work!
-What are you doing, sadists?? – Claire cried, and tried to hit them.
One of them kicked her in the stomach.
It took her time to get up, and she tasted blood in her mouth.
-Someone, please, kill me!! – moaned the girl, as the doctors were cutting her flesh without any painkillers, and the others squeezed the baby out of her belly.
Claire took her ice-cold hand again.
Before finally passing out, the poor young woman tightened her fingers around Clair’s in a deadly grasp. Her eyes seemed to be getting out of their orbs, and she didn’t look like a human being anymore.
What crushed the bones of a medical student’s hand wasn’t a “laboring woman”, but a broken agonizing animal.
Clair got down on the floor, trying hard not to scream, but  failed.

The newborn boy was put into the ICU, and so was the mom.
She refused to see her son, cursing the day when he was conceived.
But Claire wanted to see and encourage her.
-Why, - the girl asked her, -Why on Earth are we supposed to push an object as big as a melon out of the hole as tiny as a lemon? Isn’t it clear, that it’s impossible? It’s pure mathematics.
If only anyone knew the answer.

After that day, Claire swore to never have any kids of her own.
She also swore to help her patients and meant it.
The incident at the hospital was long ago hushed up and forgotten, and the young doctor’s fingers straightened up. But sometimes they still hurt.
Her heart ached even more, when she saw, that her initiatives at work were not welcome.
Everyone around seemed to think, that it’s the way nature works, and it can’t be changed. They definitely ignored the fact that all the surgeries were done with anesthesia, - without a question, except the patient’s heart condition. But pregnant women were the outlaws. They had to beg for painkillers, and be ashamed for it.
Claire even had to hear professional gynecologists mention the Eve’s curse.
She often tried to cheat a little and give the women some more meds, and, since it was hard to over-use the supplies without getting caught, she spent her own money to buy extras.
But her attempts to “make the world a better place” did not lead to much improvement.
She worked at an average hospital for common people who couldn’t pay for separate rooms with all the conveniences, anesthesia and attention of the medical personnel all to one person.

Even though Claire loved her job, it was exhausting and didn’t leave her much time for other activities, but she still enjoyed reading. She read about the old cult of the Goddess that flourished long before the Christianity and surprisingly fit very well into the Christian concept of the Holy Grail as the Knights Templar understood it.
The Grail or Goblet is but a symbol of a woman as a “vessel of life”.
For the ancients the ability to give life was sacred, which echoed in the modern religion as the cult of the Virgin Mary.
It was hard to understand the contradiction: if a woman was made to give birth to children, like legs are made for walking, eyes for seeing and wings for flying – than what happens “naturally” should feel this way.
Do we cripple in pain when using our bodies, our senses, and even creating works of art, which are often compared to children? No, unless there is something wrong, and pain is the signal, the red flag.
Besides, what is that “Eve’s curse?”
Of course, the Bible was written and re-written so many times.
It was abridged, or altered, depending on what the ruling elite wanted their people to believe in to draw more power away from them.
But anyways, the message was clear.
Initially, a woman’s body was designed in a different way and she was not supposed to suffer while giving life.
Probably, a man’s body was different, too, since he didn’t have to put so much effort into work.
Claire also loved reading fairy-tales.
The division of heroes into good and bad often seemed weird to her.
For instance, the dragons had to be wiped off just because they were on the way… and they were dragons!
Whoever possessed magic powers were most often announced evil, even the tiny winged fairies, who were said to be sly tricksters.
She was fascinated by the old Greek mythology, and appalled to learn, that gods of the past were turned into demons. The former Olympians now had to dwell in the darkness.
The same happened to all of the pagan gods. Wicca, shamanism, Scandinavian and Indian tales were telling about the wise creatures which would not fit into the image of an angel at all.

One day, while driving back home after work, she took a longer way. Driving calmed her down.
This is how she spotted a remarkable store.
It was the wreath made of artificial black roses, which fixed her gaze first.
Claire parked her car and went in.
Alchemy Gothic jewelry, scary dolls in small coffins instead of gift boxes, essential oils, and a lot of disturbing statuettes dragged her in. This was definitely a shopping Mecca for Goths, punks and Halloween lovers.
She kept looking at one item after another.
The place had a collection of the images of lost gods and goddesses, now serving as fun decorations for eccentrics.
Claire kept looking at the dragons. All of them looked evil and angry.
She tried to imagine them in a friendlier mood, and suddenly thought that not a single creature is crabby without a reason.
The faces of terrified, exhausted women, broken by pain were not human. These reptiles were so much like Claire’s patients, because they suffered.
Some wheels started spinning in her head.
She cast a glance on a statuette of a baby dragon, hatching from an egg, than a tiny wall hanging in the form of a winged fairy.
That was it. The moment of truth.

“Why don’t people lay eggs and fly like dragons? - She thought. – It would only make sense, especially if one remembers, that, according to the Holy Grail stories, the lineages of the 13 royal bloodlines, also called illuminati, are believed to start with mythical creatures, like snakes and dragons. Princesses Tiamat and Melusine are amongst them.  That’s why the descendants of those families were hunted down by the church who believed some animals are unholy, and the whole idea is absurd. Still, the most influential and rich dynasties of the world are at least related to the certain bloodlines, which only makes me think, that those reptile ancestors must had been very powerful. And, probably, they have their secrets of passing on their DNA from generation to generation without killing their women who are sacred to them”.

“-This is the right way to think about it, Claire”, - she heard the voice in her mind.
A man was standing behind her.
-Did you talk to me? – she asked him, feeling rather silly.
-You know I did, - he answered.
-Who are you and what do you want? – she asked him.
-I came here to tell you, - he said.

Seeing her hesitation, he took the hatching dragon statuette off the shelf and repeated her thought word by word. Then told her he knows her first patient disfigured her fingers, so she had to learn how to write with her left hand. He also knew that Claire’s today’s patron, a woman who brought two twins into this world, asked to sterilize her right afterwards. She got her epidural, but was disgusted with the stretched belly and thirty extra pounds she put on during pregnancy.
The young woman was astonished.
She didn’t notice when her new companion paid for the toy and they walked out.

-My name is Chris, - he said, - And this is it. We don’t need social rituals.
-Who “we”? – Claire asked.
She had an answer in her head, but was afraid she just stumbled into a madman.
“-That’s right, - he talked to her telepathically again, - To all today’s population I’m nothing but a freak… And there are not many of us. I think you know what I mean”.
She looked at him.
The man was handsome, but not in the pop-style, but in what could be described – a more real way.
Claire was hesitant.
If he invites her to follow him, that might be a trap. But, if she runs away, she may never know something important. On the other hand, how can she have him tell her what he wants, if there are people around??
There is a way.
She tried to communicate silently, by forming a question in her head:
-How can you read my mind?
The reply came instantly:
-The way you read mine.
She smiled and they continued talking, never speaking a word, walking down the street.
Claire forgot that she left her car behind and didn’t even notice that the rain is pouring.

Chris told her about the old race of people.
They had wings and could fly like birds. They could also breathe under water and spit fire – when they needed to warm or protect themselves.
And – instead of undergoing a series of terrors during childbirth, their women laid eggs. It took them a while to hatch, and then, when children stepped out of them, they were already pretty independent in their acting and thinking. Parents were treated like teachers and givers of life, but never dependent upon.
The dragon kids could be compared to the fourteen year old human children.
It took their parents several months to educate the eggs. Books were read to them, they were taken to the theaters and all kinds of gatherings. Mother, father and all the family would sing and dance for them, teach them history and all the knowledge they would need in their prospective life, including martial arts, mind-reading, flying, surviving in different elements, dealing with each other with respect and love.
Once learned anything, a creature inside the egg would never forget it.
The dragons never needed schools for their children.
No matter all kids hate school!!! They have the memory in their blood that tells them its just a waste of time, and there is, - or at least there was – a very different and much more productive way to get knowledge.
-Didn’t you see, - he told her, - That amongst all creatures the newborn human beings are the most vulnerable? They can do nothing on their own. And, as they are little, they are so much trouble to the others and to themselves.
-But how come these people are no more? – she asked.
-Well, almost no more. We learned to hide, because very little can be done against the majority with their mental  limitations they agreed to put on themselves.
As to how people lost their wings…
You and I will never understand those who chopped them off, but they did.
I don’t know who they were. Our history threw their names and the memory of them away. Instead of teaching our kids about those we just ignored them.
Our race seemed invincible to most other organisms on Earth, but not to the cosmic cataclysms. Millions of years ago, as a result of the collision of our planet with a huge meteorite, we were exposed to the harmful radiation, and deprived of the most warmth and sunlight for many years.
Many of us mutated and lost their wings. Apparently, they lost their minds, too. They were jealous of those who still could fly. We were happy to help and cooperated with them, - but, as it often happened in post-human history, (it’s how we call the time after the dragon humanity had lost its wings) – since they couldn’t develop their own talents anymore or wait till their descendants recover our species, they decided to deprive the others of the gifts, given to us from the very beginning of time.
Instead of inspiring them, we, the lucky ones, untouched by mutations, were a slap in the face, a reminder of what they once had been.
There was a lot of bloodshed and genetic modifications.
As our kids hatched, their wings were immediately removed. Women were made to drink the poison, which didn’t let them form the egg tissue inside their bodies. Instead, babies of a dangerously big size got stuck in them, and once slim and slender ladies started growing those huge ugly bellies.
But the worse came when they had to give life. Instead, their own was often taken.
This is what our oppressors hoped for – that the race will die out.
But women, the keepers of the knowledge, turned out to be stronger than anyone could expect, and thus began to breed the new species.
You may ask, how could we let them do this.
Well, we were na;ve and believed we all are brothers and sisters.
Those who had lost their powers realized we are stronger, so they started forming alliances and social institutions which we never needed before and which you know as political and religious circles.
The world had changed to never be the same again. The supreme beings you once were compromised their natural talents for being controlled, organized and directed. They truly lost their innocence…
Sounds different, than being banned from paradise, doesn’t it?
-Quite different, - Claire said.
“When the beings, once healthy, able to live in air, fire and water, turned into trembling miserable creatures unable to defend themselves, they had a faint chance of survival. They very soon forgot most of what their ancestors taught them and became weaker that monkeys… You guys teach evolution in some schools, but even if you don’t, you still believe that’s the beginning of your history: tribes of homo sapiens naked, having nothing but a rough wooden  shovel to dig out roots...
Post-humans would keep some memories about meeting their ancestors, and pass them on. We preferred to keep those encounters secret, but it was hard for the new vulnerable race not to give the mysteries away.
Depending on post-human’s mindset, some called us angels.
Others, who had their brains washed enough, thought we were dark demons.
While, in fact, they both saw the same kind!
People of my race were painted both as heavenly gentle men and women (and then someone forbid to create images of women with wings, thus you never heard of female angels, only little fairies), - and also we were painted as aggressive reptiles.
Sometimes our species would breed with post-humans, as I told you before. And then a lot depended on your open-mindedness.
Some women of the new kind were disgusted with the fact that they had to lay eggs. Sure, they would rather bleed to death and scream their brains out. And probably risk their life, as well as their baby’s – just because it’s “proper”.
Others accepted the lifestyle of their grand-grandparents, and, if they were not careful, were announced to be witches and burned at the stake, if we didn’t take quick action to save and hide them. Many of us still feel guilty for not being able to protect our post-human wives.
Rumors spread about “succubuses”, and there were a lot of heroic tales about “slaying the dragons”.
As you see, it was impossible to mix with you and coexist openly.
So it is best for us if you believe we are nothing but a fantasy.
However, all these years our scientists and visionaries made a lot of research that would reveal how to turn a “butterfly without wings”, what to us the new race is, into what they once were – if they want, of course.
We wanted to help our poor brothers and tried to teach them whatever we know. We still do. But you now turned into our enemies. You believe we are demons. Your blood ancestors are pictured as evil dragons and snakes, even though we never looked like any.
Once in a while we sense some of you looking for answers, and not being satisfied with what is said to be “normal”. You are one of those butterflies longing for wings…

-What do you look like? – she asked Chris.
-Come with me and see, - he answered.
-Where do you live?
-In your world, which used to be ours, disguised as a common person.
-Do you have any hope that we’ll come back to the initial state?
-Yes. Some of us breed with post-humans, and some did in the very beginning. This is how the thirteen illuminati bloodlines started.
-How do you plan to help us become what we are supposed to be?
Chris sighed.
-We never plan, when it comes to dealing with the others. There is nothing more precious than free will. The most of the humans would never want to be like us, and we respect their choice, even though it’s a sad one.
But it’s only obvious, that most of the humans would not let the dragon race be what we are if they learn the “abnormal” individuals are living side by side with them.
Besides, there is a lot of greedy immoral ones who might use our off springs as a biological weapon of their political ambitions. We don’t want that.
This is why there is such secrecy and skepticism about the mere thought of changing the world. You can only change yourself.

They walked back to Claire’s car, and she asked Chris if he needs a ride.
It was already pretty late.
He said he has a ride of his own, and then made a suggestion to get on top of the roof together.
Some buildings surrounding the area were really high.
The new friends were lucky to find one without any locks in the attic.
As they stepped onto the middle of the roof, Chris took off his long cloak.
The t-shirt followed it.
And then he turned his back to her.
She first thought those were   tattoos, but was mistaken.   
His wings were long; so long they would reach to his feet and touch the earth, when unfolded.
He took a deep breath and spread them.
Wide, powerful, they were covered with billions of tiny hairs, too gentle to be compared to feathers, scales or fur.
-Can I touch them? – she asked.
He took her hand in his and put it on top of his left wing.
Most of all, the texture that she was stroking reminded her of butterflies.
There was nothing more tender, than the hairs covering the wings, and stronger, than the elastic tissue which was covered with them.
And the color!
When unfolded and spread, they reflected the rainbow in its full glory.
-How beautiful, - was all she could say.
Chris explained to her that, just as skin, hair and eye color, the coloration of the wings varied from individual to individual, and could change within certain limits to camouflage the dragon, or, on the contrary, help him or her show off to attract a mate.
-Judging by the brightness of your colors now, that’s what you are doing, - Claire said.
-Exactly, - he replied and smiled, - So do you want a ride?
For some reason a naughty song surfaced in her mind – “Save a horse, ride a cowboy”. She told Chris about it.
They both laughed as they flew across the night sky towards his home, him holding her tight.
-They would think we’re dirty, sinful and primitive if they knew, - Chris said.
But no one did.

The next morning Claire didn’t go to work.
Neither did she the morning afterwards.
In fact, she never came back home again.
Her car got towed away; her bosses had to find someone else to do her job, her relatives arranged for the symbolic funeral after several months of fruitless search for the lost woman.
However, they found the statuette of a hatching dragon on her mantelpiece, and under it was a note.
They never told anyone what was written in it, and hid or burned it.
Neither is it known if they believed what it said.
To everyone outside their family they announced that Claire was dead, and whatever the mystery was behind it, they kept it.

Many miles away, Claire and Chris were playing the music and videos, reading all kinds of books including fairy-tales to their two twin eggs, and taught them everything they and many generations before them knew.
Claire never experienced morning sickness, gaining weight or loss of intelligence. She was wearing tight corsets that she loved all the time while she was pregnant, and it only took her less than nine weeks.
Then, when the time came to lay her eggs, Chris ran a warm foamy bath for her and lulled her into a slumber with his humming of long-forgotten songs.
She didn’t feel any pain or even discomfort as two rainbow-colored eggs slipped out of her body and floated peacefully on the water. They were twice as big as chicken eggs, very warm and soft.
The parents could see the two tiny silhouettes inside the oval protective layers. Both had wings and looked exactly like the fairies one can still see in artworks.
Claire kept drinking the potion Chris made for her, - the result of the long-performed research, which activated the genes sleeping in her DNA that bring back the initial gifts, lost millions of years ago.

One day she ventured her first flight.
After worshiping her new gorgeous wings, colored as purple clouds (her favorite color plus abstract shapes), she turned away from the old huge mirror, and went to look at the eggs, which by that time were almost nine months old.
Then, knowing in her heart, that she cannot fall, it’s impossible – she stepped off the edge of the windowsill.
How many people of our time did it in desperation, in order to finish their lives!
She finished hers, too – as a woman she used to know herself.
Instead of committing a suicide, which everyone does, who jumps off a high cliff, or a bridge, or a tower, - she felt the joy that used to be sleeping inside and waiting to be awakened, the natural joy that used to belong to all the people.
She was flying.
To illuminate the darkening sky before her, she took a deep breath and then let the stream of fire out of her mouth. The fire kept glowing around her head, forming what the religious ones call a halo. It also reminded her of the word which the modern dragon dynasties call themselves – illuminati.
After spotting the sea beneath her, she dove right in it, and enjoyed the fantastic view of the coral reef, using the glow around her head as a flashlight… The scientists call the ability of the organisms to create light “bioluminescence”. Why not believe, that people are able of doing that, too?
She was surprised to find out, that her lungs let her breathe under water. They just worked different, as if switching to aquatic mode.
And she thought – this is what the Creator must be. Not a  jealous punisher who doesn’t want the development and full unfolding of life, but an omnipotent thinking force, that enjoys forming strong and beautiful creatures like the ancient people, and living through them.

She found Chris and told him:
-Darling, the kids just hatched.


July 15, 2009.