Lars glanced at the baby. He had already been washed, but there were still small traces of blood on him. He was crying and twitching. The baby's father quickly turned his gaze to the obstetrician, not reacting to his congratulatory words.

Lars: ‘How is my wife? Is she healthy? When can I see her?’

Obstetrician: ‘That will have to wait a little longer. Her condition is assessed as critical. After giving birth, her condition has deteriorated significantly.’

Lars (nervously): ‘how long do I have to wait?’

Obstetrician: ‘Have patience, Mr Davel. Our doctors are doing everything they can to stabilise her condition. You still haven't given us an answer as to the boy's name. Would you agree to us putting him down as Theodore Davel in the city's registration system?’

Lars: ‘Write him down however you want…’

Lars clutched his head and started pacing from side to side. In his head he was cursing the doctor, the labour, the baby and the whole situation. The obstetrician at first wanted to pass him by, but then turned to the man and said, ‘Then I'll put him down as “Theodore” at the mother's request. We'll get the paperwork done quickly enough so you can have the baby in an hour… and Mr Davel, I know you're going through a very difficult time, but don't blame it on the baby. It is not at all to blame for what is happening to its mother.’

Lars took the baby even though he didn't want to do so. The man had no time to prepare an apartment, a room or at least a cot for the baby. Clothes and nappies too. In fact, he didn't want to do it. Firstly, he was not completely sure that the labour would go well, and secondly, the father had absolutely no sympathy for his firstborn. He saw in him only the cause of his beloved's illness.

As a result, he laid the boy on a warm woollen rug that lay beside the bed, wrapping him in a plaid. Of course, the entrepreneur was not going to hire a nanny. So the baby lay on this mat, which he had enclosed with a dog enclosure, while Lars was working in the restaurant. The baby was doing his best, smearing his faeces all over the mat. Within a couple of days, Lars realised that it was necessary to buy nappies and nappies, as it would be cheaper than having to take the carpet to the city dry cleaner or buy a new one every time. However, the boy's conditions have not improved. Ah, if the juvenile affairs inspectors had seen this spectacle....

The little boy was fed three times a day. Once in the morning before Lars went to work, once at lunchtime, and once when the man returned from work. The boy was remarkably quiet for an infant. But, like any other child of that age, allowed himself to be capricious from time to time. including waking his father up at the crack of dawn.

Inessa was discharged home three weeks after the birth. According to the doctors, her condition was already stable enough that she did not need outpatient treatment. However, she was still weak. The disease was eating her from the inside out. The woman's appearance was pale and tortured. Lars was faced with another problem. Now both had to be taken care of at the same time. Davel spent most of his time taking care of his wife, sometimes forgetting about the child. Only when Inessa reminded him that he needed to feed the baby or change his nappy did he remember.

With Inessa's discharge, Lars' life became more complicated, as Inessa constantly gave him a lot of tasks to do and made sure that the baby was clean, clothed, fed and as happy as possible. With the arrival of the mother in the house, the baby, on his tiny face, finally began to appear a sincere and good-natured smile. Inessa herself, in spite of her unenviable state of health, was also greatly transformed around the child. She found extra strength to babysit him, talk to him, rock him and feed him. She had to feed him with formula milk, as she did not produce milk due to the same illness. Doctors were amazed that such a sick mother had a perfectly healthy child. After all, there was very little chance of the baby having such health, given the mother's problems with a large number of organs.

A couple of years went by. The child was growing up. Lars saw how reverently Inessa treated the baby and began to soak up her warmth and affection for this tiny creature. Unfortunately, the disease did not share their feelings. The disease had its own plans for the child's mother. Inessa was getting worse and worse with each passing month, until it came to the point that she had to be hospitalised again, as home treatment with medication alone was no longer sufficient. Constant medical supervision was required. Lars had to quit his job completely, hire a couple of other people, and become a housewife, torn between hospital and home. Only a couple of times a week, he stopped by the restaurant to check on his condition. As a result, the quality of service deteriorated and the flow of customers decreased, followed by a significant reduction in the income of the establishment.

For the last few days, Inessa had been almost completely immobilised from the illness and the large amount of chemical drugs. She had become so skinny that the outlines of bones and veins were visible through the stretched skin. Her head resembled the skull of a living dead person who had not yet had time to decompose, with deep pits and hollows. Her uncombed hair had already begun to peel away from her head, and whole strands of it were sliding down her pillow, falling to the floor. In place of the torn hair, her head was a patch of dark maroon-coloured, inflamed patches, some of them even showing pus. Her hands trembled frequently, the nails on them beginning to flake and fall off. It was not a sight for the faint of heart. And Lars, every time he saw his wife, doomed to death, so helpless and defenceless, could not hold back his tears. They poured from his eyes every time he sat down next to her hospital bed.

Every day, he came to the room with the baby and fruit. When Lars came inside, he lit a scented candle, put it on the bedside table, and put her favourite sweets in a saucer. She was tied to the bunk and there was no way she could eat them. It was part of some inalienable personal ritual for the man, carried out for the health of his wife. He knew how dear Theodore was to Inessa and how she felt about him, so Lars had hoped to the last moment to awaken in her new strength to fight the incurable disease by bringing a child with him. However, these attempts, as well as many others, proved futile. In May 743, Inessa died of the Hyena disease, making Lars a single father. Although, in fact, he had been such a long time ago, and now, it was only officially registered in the city registry.

The year is 744. It's been exactly one year since Inessa's death. Theodore was three years old. The family business had gone under. Lars practically stopped coming to his restaurant. More and more often he went to the bar to forget himself with a few beers or something stronger. The grief-stricken father of a young child tried to cope with the loss of his wife through alcohol, sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss of misery and frustration. Caring for the boy continued to be a mere formality without any feelings of love and care. Lars couldn't wait until the month of August to dump the burden in the Children's Educational Centre (or CEC for short) far away from himself.

This was the name given to all existing educational centres for children aged three to six. There were many such urban and rural institutions in the world. The main task of which was to identify talents in the kids. On the basis of appropriate recommendations from the teachers, parents would send their children to schools where they would be trained for their future professions. Lars was not the kind of parent who cared about the welfare of his child. He never dreamed of finding out what talent lay in his son. For him, the CEC was just a place where he could send his child for a long period of time. The classes were held on weekdays, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. If it had been up to Lars, he would have left Theodore there forever and would not have regretted it.