Life of An Orphan

Lucian was born on a night that did not want him. The rain had been falling for hours before he arrived, thick and relentless, drumming against the rusted zinc roof of the maternity ward like impatient fingers. Thunder rolled in the distance, not loud enough to frighten the women already accustomed to pain, but deep enough to make the walls tremble as if the building itself knew something fragile was about to break. The nurse would later say she remembered the storm more than the child. She remembered how the lights flickered just as the baby cried—how the bulb above the bed blinked twice, then steadied, as if the world hesitated before deciding whether to let him stay. Lucian entered the world screaming. Not the soft, startled cry of newborns who protest the cold air, but a raw, furious sound—sharp and desperate, like someone already arguing with fate. His tiny chest heaved, ribs fluttering beneath skin that was still learning its color. His fists clenched instinctively, fingers curling around nothing. There were no arms waiting to catch him. His mother, Elara, lay still on the narrow bed, her face turned slightly to the side, lips parted as if she were about to say his name but had forgotten it at the last moment. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, unfocused, glassy. A thin line of sweat traced the hollow of her temple, glinting faintly under the dim light. “Madam?” the nurse called softly. No answer. The doctor pressed two fingers against Elara’s neck, then looked up slowly. His face carried the weight of men who have learned how to deliver bad news without letting it touch their own hearts too deeply. “She’s gone,” he said. The words fell quietly. They did not echo. They did not demand attention. They simply existed—final and immovable. Lucian’s cry filled the space his mother left behind. The nurse wrapped him in a thin blanket and held him close, though her arms were stiff with hesitation. She had seen many births end in grief, but there was something unsettling about this one. Perhaps it was the way the child clutched at the air, searching. Perhaps it was the way his cry didn’t soften when held, didn’t quiet when rocked. As if he already knew. Elara had come to the hospital alone. No husband waited outside. No sister paced the corridor. No anxious family member asked if the baby was healthy, if the mother was breathing, if everything had gone well. Her file was thin. Name: Elara Noven Age: 22 Marital Status: Single Next of Kin: None listed When the nurse asked if there was anyone to call, the doctor shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “She came alone. Signed everything herself.” Lucian was placed in a plastic bassinet beside a body that would never warm him. For a brief moment, the nurse considered placing the baby closer, letting him rest beside the woman who had carried him for nine months. But the doctor shook his head again. “It won’t help,” he said. “He won’t remember.” But memory does not need consciousness to begin its work. Lucian’s first memory was not of his mother’s face. It was of absence. The first thing his body learned was the language of loss—the cold after warmth, the silence after a heartbeat, the emptiness after a connection severed too soon. By morning, Elara’s body had been taken away, wrapped neatly in white. Lucian remained. No one named him at first. For two days, his file read: Male infant. Mother deceased. On the third day, a clerk finally asked, “Does the child have a name?” The nurse hesitated. “She whispered something before… before it happened,” the nurse said, unsure if she was remembering correctly or inventing comfort. “I think she said… Lucian.” The clerk wrote it down. Lucian. A name meaning light—given to a child whose first hours were spent under flickering bulbs and storm-heavy skies. He was discharged not into arms, but into a system. A social worker arrived with tired eyes and a clipboard worn soft at the edges. She looked at Lucian with professional detachment, noting his weight, his health, his quietness. He had stopped crying by then, not because he was content, but because crying had not brought anyone back. “He’s calm,” the social worker observed. “Yes,” the nurse replied, her voice tight. “Too calm.” Lucian was placed in a temporary care home before being transferred to the orphanage three weeks later. The building stood at the edge of the city, where roads cracked and dreams thinned. It was painted a pale yellow once, but time had drained the color until it resembled something tired and undecided. The gate creaked when opened, a sound that echoed through the courtyard like a warning. Inside, children’s voices rose and fell—laughter mixed with crying, arguments layered over lullabies. The smell of disinfectant lingered, sharp and clean, failing to mask the scent of too many lives crammed into too little space. Lucian was placed in Crib 17. A small metal tag hung at its foot, stamped with his name and date of birth. The mattress was thin, the sheets clean but rough. Above him, the ceiling bore faint cracks like veins. He lay there quietly, dark eyes watching shadows move across the walls. Other babies cried. Lucian listened. Days passed. Weeks. Months. Caretakers came and went. Some were gentle. Some were efficient. None stayed long enough to be remembered. Lucian learned patterns quickly. Hands appeared when bottles arrived. Hands disappeared afterward. Faces leaned close, then pulled away. Voices spoke his name with different tones—some soft, some distracted, some already exhausted. No voice belonged to him. By the time he was one year old, Lucian had learned the art of stillness. He did not cry unless necessary. He did not reach out unless touched first. He observed the world with the cautious intensity of someone who understood that attention was temporary and affection came with an expiration date. There were children who screamed when left alone. Lucian did not. There were children who clung to legs, who wailed when caregivers turned their backs. Lucian watched. The caregivers praised him. “Such a good boy,” they said. “So independent.” “He doesn’t cause trouble.” They did not understand that what they called good was simply adaptation. Lucian’s earliest understanding of love was transactional. If he was quiet, he was fed quickly. If he did not demand, he was praised. If he did not need, he was tolerated. So he learned not to need. At night, when the lights dimmed and the building settled into uneasy silence, Lucian lay awake. The orphanage breathed around him—pipes rattling, distant footsteps, the soft sobs of children still fighting sleep. Sometimes, he dreamed. In those dreams, he was falling. Not from a height, but into something vast and undefined. His body tipped forward, arms reaching instinctively for something to stop the descent. But there was nothing. He would wake with a sharp breath, fingers clenched, heart racing. No one came. Lucian learned to calm himself. He sucked his thumb until sleep returned, training his body to soothe its own fear. He did not know that this was a skill born of neglect, not strength. By the time he could walk, Lucian knew the orphanage better than any child his age. He knew which floorboard creaked, which door stuck, which caretaker preferred quiet obedience over cheerful noise. He knew where the sun pooled in the courtyard at noon and where shadows gathered in the corners. He watched children leave. That was perhaps the hardest lesson. Families came—some smiling, some cautious, some already overwhelmed. They pointed. They asked questions. They held hands with children who dared to hope. Lucian watched from a distance. He never pushed forward. Hope, he had learned, was dangerous when it was not chosen. Children returned sometimes. Their faces looked different then—quieter, smaller somehow. They avoided questions. Lucian noticed how they stopped talking about the outside world, how their eyes dulled as if a light had been switched off inside them. One girl, Mira, cried for three nights after being brought back. Lucian sat beside her cot once, offering a small wooden toy he had found under his bed. She took it without looking at him. “Why did they bring you back?” Lucian asked quietly. Mira shrugged. “They said I was too much,” she whispered. Lucian nodded. He understood. When he was five, Lucian finally asked a question that had lived inside him for years. “Where is my mother?” The caretaker paused mid-motion, spoon hovering above a bowl of porridge. Her face tightened, just slightly. “She passed away,” she said. “During childbirth.” Lucian considered this. “Why?” The caretaker sighed. “Sometimes people leave,” she said. “That’s just how life is.” Lucian did not ask again. He internalized the lesson differently. People leave because they can. From that day on, Lucian began to construct walls—not the loud, angry kind, but quiet, invisible ones. He smiled when expected. He helped when asked. He never begged. Inside, something folded inward. A small part of him—the part that reached, that wanted, that believed—curled up and learned to stay still. At seven, Lucian was moved to the older children’s dormitory. The beds were bigger. The rules were stricter. The expectations heavier. “You’re a big boy now,” they told him. Lucian nodded. Big boys didn’t cry. Big boys didn’t ask why they had no one waiting for them. Big boys didn’t wonder what it felt like to be held by someone who had no intention of letting go. But at night, when the lights went out and the air grew thick with unspoken longing, Lucian stared at the ceiling and imagined arms. Not just any arms. Arms that would catch him before he fell. He imagined what his mother might have smelled like. What her voice might have sounded like when she said his name. Whether she would have laughed loudly or softly, whether her hands would have been warm or cool against his skin. He imagined being lifted effortlessly, carried without fear of being dropped. And then he imagined her dying. The image came uninvited, brutal and final. He learned to stop imagining. By the time Lucian turned ten, the orphanage had carved itself into his bones. He walked with measured steps. He spoke with careful words. He trusted no promise fully. Teachers described him as intelligent but distant. Caretakers described him as obedient but closed off. Children described him as quiet, sometimes cold. None of them knew that Lucian was not cold. He was cautious. Because he had been born without arms to catch him. And once you learn what it feels like to fall into nothing, you spend the rest of your life making sure you never fall again. That was how Lucian’s life began. Not with love. Not with celebration. But with loss so immediate that it became the foundation of everything he would become. And though he did not know it yet, this beginning—the storm, the silence, the empty arms—would echo through every relationship, every fear, every choice he would one day make. Because some people spend their lives chasing love. And others, like Lucian, spend theirs learning how to survive without it.