Birth

He was proud, moreso than even a new father ever felt. Proud of this world, of what it was becoming with each new day, of the fact that man could finally see beyond their difference and work towards a common goal. That pride seemed to swell like a chorus within the near-still corridors of the hospital as he stood, stared, and smiled.

The smile wasn't for her, necessarily, though his newborn daughter would've been something any parent would've beamed over. In spite of her ruddy skin, she was beautiful, and in contrast to the infants around her with their fidgeting and crying? She was serene, calm, prosaic even.

Perhaps it was a gift from the Prophet on this joyous day, perhaps a sign of favor that he had given his daughter the Prophet's name in her honor. Could the child already feel the joy of their savior? Could she already be full of that sense of purpose that filled him and robbed him of the tears a lesser man might have spilled?

The doctor hadn't understood his calm, his peace of the soul when he'd just nodded at the news of his wife's death. But the doctor was here, working furiously like a man who couldn't even glimpse the wonder of this day. So the doctor was a fool. His wife had gone to a better place, he believed that. She had embraced a paradise that the Prophet would bring to the living, in time.

He wished that she could see it, felt a momentary pang of sorrow for what she would be denied. It faded as he looked back into the nursery. His daughter... she would see the world his wife could not. It would be the only one she ever knew.