Paradoxically Yours...

Cabbage Patch Kid

(prompt: 'carrot' 29/12/2017)

"Aww Mum, let me. Please, please, please?" Little Gilbert's voice went from pleading to whining, as he added, "you never let me do ANYTHING good and fun. Bet it's because you grew up in the Depression and had hardly no fun at all. Betcha that's why." And he narrowed his eyes and pursed his mouth tight as if closed with a zipper.

Marsha sighed. She had the feeling she was never going to win this one. Gilbert had persisted about it for days. Something about it being his place of birth, or so they had told him, drew him like a magnet. For a while it had been enough information for him to believe he was born in the cabbage patch across the road. But he was getting older everyday, heading towards his prime, and had begun doubting his parents about everything.

There seems no way out, Marsha thought, and felt sad. It was such a worry to let him cross the road by himself to visit his Aunt Bertha, and see what she had to say about his beginnings - but Marsha just couldn't tear herself away from the job at hand. Surely all would be well. After all, Bertha was the custodian of the cabbage patch. If Gilbert would believe anyone, it would be her.

"Except... uhrr... I'm afraid to go across alone. I might get run over." He glanced fearfully in both directions of the busy road.

"Nonsense. I'll tell you when there's a break in the traffic and you run as fast as you can. Trust me."

After all, this IS what Gilbert wanted, so he made himself feel a little braver as he readied himself for his mother's words. "Go now. Quickly!" In his head he roared away like a super-charged E-type something.

But suddenly a big truck pulled out to pass another vehicle and Marsha screamed. It hit little Gilbert and seemed to have near squashed the life out of him. Ignoring all advice, she picked him up and rushed to the nearby hospital, where emergency surgery was required if there was to be any hope of saving him.

Poor Marsha suffered through several hours' anguish until the surgeon emerged with "good news and bad news" he said. Marsha took her deepest breath and exhaled sharply before telling him to go ahead, she could take it.

"Well, the good news is that your son is going to live."

"But what on earth could be the bad news, then?" Marsha couldn't imagine. Her small son was alive!

The surgeon laid a warm hand on her shoulder. "Gilbert is going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life."

"I don't care," Gilbert piped up in his thin little voice. They hadn't realised he could hear their voices in the passage outside his room. "I don't carrot all. I'll just be a lonely little carrot from the cabbage patch. If I mainly keep quiet the others will barely notice me."

For a moment he looked glum, "But just for now lettuce rest, I'm feeling beet."