Gumba Cuddles
Content Warning (click to expand)
offstage war and death, non-consensual touching
by David Anaxagoras
Gumba is my name for grandfather. It sounds like the word for grandfather where Gumba is from — but not exactly. Gumba came from Faraway Land. He has had many jobs, but he says this job at St. Joseph’s Neonatal ICU is the most important. Gumba is not a doctor. He is a volunteer. His job is to cuddle babies.
The babies that Gumba cuddles also come from a faraway land and from a faraway war. The babies are hurt. Hurt by the war. The land far away has no hospitals. The war took the hospitals away. The war took the mommies and daddies away. The war took away the food and took away the water. The babies must come here to survive. If they survive long enough, maybe they heal. If they get medicine. And surgeries. And most of all, cuddles.
• • •
Cuddling babies is not a very manly thing to do, but very old men seem to get away with it. Young boys can cuddle too, and sometimes be cuddled, but I am getting too old for all that — so my father and his brothers say. They tease me. They think I’m not tough enough to be a man. But I am a boy. And I am plenty tough, let me tell you.
Gumba does not tease me. He laments that I do not fit in his lap anymore, not like I used to. I am all arms and legs. Sometimes when we are alone, he will fold me up in his arms and cuddle me like when I was small. I like that. My Gumba is the best at cuddling. His cuddles are a warm, crackling campfire. His cuddles smell like smoke and marshmallows. His cuddles are curtains of sun on your bare brown skin, soaking through your muscles, until your bones are warm and glowing. His cuddles can stop the cold and arrest the dark. I like being held like a baby, sometimes. Don’t tell my dad or his brothers.
• • •
I come to the hospitals with Gumba because I like to help him make babies be strong, just like he helped me when I was a baby. I came from a faraway land, but not Gumba’s Faraway Land. I came from a faraway war. I don’t remember being a baby, but I remember fire. And I remember Gumba’s cuddles. My Gumba remembers war and that is why he cuddles babies. I want to be like my Gumba and help the war babies. I am not yet old enough to help the babies like Gumba does, but I can help a little bit. I can help Gumba to help.
• • •
There is a Friendly Nurse always behind the desk at this hospital and she smiles at me a lot. She smiles so much I don’t know where to look or what to do with my hands. She is not very tall and soon I will be as tall as her. She has piercings in her nose and her ears, and when I ask about them, she tells me she has many more, but cannot wear them all when she is being a nurse. Her arms are full of tattoos and sometimes when Gumba is doing his cuddling job I sit next to Friendly Nurse and trace the tattoos on her arm with my finger. I wonder if they give her protection. I wonder if they toughen her skin, somehow.
• • •
In this NICU there are four fire-alarm pulls. Small red boxes with white levers and a slot to push your fingers in to grab the pull. You must push in your fingers very hard. If there is a fire, you pull the alarm. The alarms are connected to a computer that calls the fire department. The staff are trained for what to do if there is a fire. If an alarm is pulled, first they check to be sure there really is a fire. Then they will try to extinguish it with one of the five fire extinguishers on the floor. If there is a real fire or other danger, and it cannot be extinguished, the staff will evacuate the NICU. There are four NICU bays, and each has double doors that open to the outside. We are on the first floor, so that the babies can simply be rolled out the doors to safety. There’s more to it than that. There is a whole book of emergency procedures. I know about them all. When you come from a faraway war, you want to know these things. You want to know what to do when the fire comes. I know how to pull the alarm.
• • •
You should see Gumba with a baby. He becomes also like a child. Some people think a man’s hands should be rough. Calloused. Hard. Gumba’s hands are smooth and soft. When he sees a baby, his friendly mustache twitches. His face shines. His eyes light. When picks up the baby, he always supports the head. He is so careful. He lays the baby on his chest and shoulder and talks. His voice is a soothing purr. He talks about anything. Everything. The weather. The stock market. My dad. His favorite memories of me growing up. The Faraway Land. Only, in Gumba’s Faraway Land there are no wars. There is magic. There are Friendly Dragons.
The nurses are always so happy to see him. They flock. They stand in his glow. That’s my Gumba.
• • •
Friendly Nurse has watery eyes today. She is smiling at me as usual, but her eyes are not smiling. When I sit with her, she does not talk so much. But she takes my hand for a few minutes and squeezes my fingers. I let her. It is like a cuddle that she needs.
Gumba explains to me later that there is a Very Sick Baby who will not live through the night. I am not sad like Friendly Nurse. I know we can help Very Sick Baby. Soon it will be time to pull the fire alarm.
• • •
My Gumba and I have been to many hospitals to help. I have met many nurses. The nurses are always happy to see me on days I help Gumba. They call me cutie. They call me sweetie-pie. It makes the tips of my ears burn, and I always smile into my chest. But there is always a shadow in their eyes. They are thinking I am too skinny. They make it a game of weighing me. They want to feed me. They tempt me with sweets. I am skinny and boney, yes, but I am strong. I tell them this is how I am made. Do you think a bird is too skinny? A snake? I am like that. They do not know how strong I am.
Once when I was napping in a rocking chair, I felt a nurse’s hand slip under my shirt and pinch at my side, measuring, trying to grab at fat that was not there. I stand up and back away from this nurse with the creeping hand. I am a runner at my school, I say. I have very little body fat, I tell her. Please do not touch me. Do not touch my bare skin under my shirt. That is not nice. My eyes are burning and angry. I can smell smoke in my nostrils. Her hand was too close to my back, I think. Dangerously close. We did not go back to that hospital with the Creeping Hand Nurse.
• • •
The NICU in this hospital has two bays on the west and two bays on the east. Between them is the nurse’s station. The west side has a supply closet. On the east side I go into the farthest bay. All day I have been hiding as many fire extinguishers as I can. It will add to the confusion. There is a notebook with emergency procedures on the nurse’s desk. I have hidden that too.
I pull the fire alarm.
There is no fire.
Yet.
• • •
The staff are not paying attention to Gumba. They are rushing to check for fire. They are looking for the emergency book. They are wondering where all the damn fire extinguishers have gone off to. There is too much that is wrong — someone says evacuate. The word echoes around the unit. Evacuate…evacuate…evacuate. I evacuated the faraway land, but I do not remember the helicopter. I do not remember the jet plane. I do not remember the hospital.
I do remember fire.
I want to see the fire again. It is my favorite thing.
I make my way to the supply room door. I know not to interrupt Gumba when he is cuddling the Very Sick Baby, so I only look through the window in the door — a small rectangle set high so that I must stand on my toes.
Then I hear a sound behind me. A sharp gasp.
The Friendly Nurse is standing looking above me at the window in the door, mouth open. She sees the color of fire flickering in the supply closet window. She rushes toward the door, arm out, ready to push me aside. I wave her off, or try to. No, no, no, I say, you cannot open the door because of the backdraft — the fire will explode and will spread. It is not true, what I am saying, but I am trying to scare her off. She is not hearing me. She has found a fire extinguisher — one I have missed. I curse under my breath.
I am not strong enough to fight her off. She pulls me aside by my skinny arm. I am insubstantial as a bird. She opens the door and aims the fire extinguisher but is frozen by what she sees. It takes all my strength to push her back and close the door again. She screams and keeps screaming. Everything will be okay, I reassure her. It happened to me and I am fine. The fire happened to me, too.
• • •
Inside the supply closet, the whole room glows with Gumba’s fire. He holds the baby in his hands before him. Gumba’s mouth is open. His jaw has lengthened. Sharp teeth are showing. The fire from his mouth is strong and focused. The roar of it is like a wind howling in a canyon. Behind him, his wings beat and feed oxygen to the flame. The Very Sick Baby is bathed in it. The baby giggles. The fire tickles. I make you strong with my fire, Gumba says between breaths. Lovely boy, lovely, lovely boy. Sweet baby boy. The fire licks the naked child. He will survive. He has been tempered with Gumba’s fire.
• • •
The Friendly Nurse is still screaming. I do not have enough fire in me yet to temper the babies, but I have smoke that can make you fall down asleep and dream and that’s what I do for the Screaming Nurse. I make her fall down and dream for a while with my smoke.
After I am sure she is dreaming, I pull off my shirt. I carefully unfold my wings, cramped from being folded down on my back all day. Wings a nurse with a creeping hand almost touched once when checking my body fat. I beat the air and dissipate the smoke. It feels good to move my wings, even if they are small. It feels good to move the air, to feel it swishing around on my bare skin. My muscles stand out a little. I look at them and my beating wings in the faint reflection of the ICU bay windows. It is too bad no one can see my muscles now. I am so strong. I have been, ever since Gumba breathed his love on me a long, long time ago and toughened me against the world. I can’t make fire yet, but I feel bright inside. One day the world will know it. One day the world will feel my heat and everyone will see me shine.
About the author and the piece (click to expand)
David Anaxagoras tells us this story was rejected 27 times before coming to us. He is the author of middle-grade horror audiobook The Tower (Recorded Books), and his short fiction has appeared in Lightspeed and elsewhere. He currently resides in Texas (but not on purpose), where he writes full time, powered by cold brew coffee, 80s vinyl, and a healthy disregard for the impossible.
©2026 by David Anaxagoras. All rights reserved. May not be used for A.I. training.