Chapter IV

It was a cloudy spring day.  Ivan peered outside his small home scratching his head haphazardly.  A scream broke his frantic thoughts, and he snapped his head back around.  It was his wife; their firstborn son was being borne into the world.  He had walked out of the room too frantic to help himself.  He knew that of all births the one child most likely to live was the firstborn, thoughts flew threw his mind like witches on broomsticks planting their evil doubts in his mind.  What if this was the only child they had?  What if his wife didn’t make it?  What if the child died or was maimed or what if his firstborn was a girl?  All these thoughts rushed through his head as he struggled to maintain sanity.  Something inside of him made him want to scream with his wife.  He wanted it to end.

            And then just as quickly as it had started, the screaming stopped and was replaced by a strained, yet happy voice.  He cleared his throat and ran a finger through his disheveled hair before slowly striding back into the room.  He stopped short as he looked into the room.  There on the table being slowly cleaned by the mid-wife was a baby boy.  A feeling of joy overwhelmed Ivan as he looked down at the small quiet boy.  His firstborn was a boy.  “I think we’ll call him Vladimir” he thought to himself, Vladimir, the quiet, commonplace boy whose name, in true Marxist fashion, would be the only thing remembered in the laconic writings of his arrogant brother.