Sponge Mind

Sponge Mind



By Mordecai J Banda



He was born February 29, at exactly 11.59 PM. The nurses knew something was wrong when the child didn’t cry, but in truth they had no idea how wrong things were. They had no idea. The baby never cried, and never opened his eyes and he didn’t seem to be breathing. The mother was tight throated with sorrow. She was now completely alone in this cruel world. The doctor present took the baby to the nearest room and set up for a quick resuscitation. The baby’s heart was beating, and so there was a chance.



The doctor was right. The mother received the news with crossed fingers and a clenched jaw. She did not dare say “Thank you God” until she was sure that her child would be okay.



She stayed there for the length of the babies’ admission. She whispered reverent prayers and almost always refused to be at the fragile being’s side. The baby pulled through, everyone shared in the mother’s joy. Her smile and dancing were infectious. This was only the first hurdle of many.

The baby never seemed hungry, and still never cried. The mother refused to let anything develop, and visited her best friend for advice. She had nothing but suggestions to go to the hospital. At the time the mother had had the sleeping baby in her arms, and her friend had had her own bawling baby fussing about her breasts. The mother appreciated how busy her friend was, and left. Before she reached the hospital however, the baby began crying and fussing about. She fed it and it never seemed to stop but then it fell asleep, completely content. From then on it had the normal cravings of a baby. The mother was pleased, and didn’t understand, but pleased all the same.



Three months later, the mother was in for a shock. The baby was already trying to walk. She was proud, and shared the news with her friend and doctor. The doctor was slightly apprehensive and advised her to keep a watch on the baby.

When she arrived, the baby was sitting in the bed in fresh new diapers. Soiled diapers were in the trash, as she always threw them away. The mother didn’t remember ever doing such a thing, but dismissed it as a stress-induced lapse of memory.

The baby didn’t seem to be interested in anything until it saw others doing them. By the end of the year all oddities were forgotten. He played, he craved, and he squealed in pleasure and made a mess of himself.

The mother was a secretary of a fairly prestigious company now. Her pay was enough for herself and her child, but now she had to rely on friends and the occasional nanny.



There were quite years after that. Then there was primary school, and the mother was shamed beyond words.

Jonathan was completely incapable at school, he barely made it to secondary, and finally she had to admit something was wrong with the baby.

Malawi’s medical services over the years had gained a considerable amount of talent and status in Africa. Graduates increasingly decided to stay and richen the country with their knowledge. 2019 was like a future never expected in Malawi. Hospitals were stocked with all sorts of impressive machines, however old they were.

Jonathan’s mother brought in her child for examination, and after an extensive battery of tests, the doctor had the face that told all: something was terribly wrong.



“Miss Hill, there is no other way to say this, but your son is a severe imbecile…”

“What did you say?” Miss Hill screamed to the young woman incredulously.

“It is a scientific term for people with low IQ’s… But I’m afraid your son’s IQ is so low… It’s simply extraordinary…”

“My son is perfectly fine! I don’t care what machines or tricks you used, but my son-”

“Miss Hill. It’s true that he had breathing complications upon birth, is it not?”

Miss Hill looked at her silently. The doctor added with a bit more sympathy, “He rarely cried, he had no cravings at first…”

Miss Hill nodded slightly.

The doctor continued, “Your son’s intelligence is so low, he didn’t know how to breathe. Then after that, he didn’t know how to show or acknowledge hunger, or cry… or…”

Miss Hill shook her head incredulously, “You must be joking… You’re…”

The doctor’s look said it all, and so did the sudden memories.

The doctor added, “I highly recommend you let your son stay here under observation until I deem him fine enough… Don’t worry, you can see him at all times, and we have no idea whether the situation is hopeless or not… so keep hope. Does he have a father?”

Miss Hill had prayed and hoped for ages, but this was the final straw. She shook her head at the doctor, with tears in her eyes and left the hospital.

Three months later, Miss Hill received a phone call, and the familiar voice of a man beckoned, “Miss Hill? Come to Queen Elizabeth immediately.”

When Miss Hill arrived, she felt sadness at her abandonment of her son, and realized how much she missed him. She suddenly wanted him under her house again. She arrived at the hospital, and was surprised to see a crowd of reporters blocking the entrance. An old man in a doctor’s coat stood at the steps of the main entrance. When he saw Miss Hill, he beckoned with a hand. The reporters spotted her and rushed towards her, barking questions with sincere, breathless voices,

“Who is the father of the child?”



“Is it true that he has an IQ of less than 10?”

“Miss Hill? Are you a native of this country?”

Then she was through the gaggle of reporters, with the old doctor graciously showing her through the doors. When Miss Hill turned to thank the doctor, she gasped,

“You… You’re Mr. Wesson!”

Mr. Wesson, the doctor who had saved Jonathan’s life at birth, smiled slightly, he seemed shell-shocked, “Go on, Miss. Go see your son.”

Miss Hill was apprehensive. She walked through the door, and was surprised to see that the hospital was relatively quiet. She walked on for a while hesitantly until she heard a voice coming from one of the small conference rooms in the hospital. She looked in through the transparent slot and saw a child dressed in simple white clothes standing in front of a gathering of doctors and nurses, with a speckle of important looking men and women in suits. Miss Hill thought the boy standing in front of the white board looked familiar.

She opened the door and saw that it was Jonathan.

Jonathan was jotting down numbers underneath the figure of a sort of machine,

“Jonathan?”

Jonathan turned and looked at her, “Oh, hello mother. How have you been?”

Miss Hill’s lips trembled. The eloquent, carefully enunciated words that had come out of the mouth were not what she expected from him.

The other people gathered looked at Miss Hill with a mixture of impatience and interest. Miss Hill distinctly heard the question,

“That’s the Mother?”

And, “I’m calling MIT.”

There was uncomfortable silence, before Jonathan continued scribbling and talking,

“The structure has been superbly crafted, but I’m surprised that the technologies used are only a fraction of what should’ve been used, when the connections are obvious. For example, here…”

“Miss Hill?” The young woman doctor had come out of the crowd to speak to her. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

“What’s happening? What happened?” Miss Hill managed to utter.

The doctor scratched her disheveled hair,

“I don’t know. I have no idea how…” She sighed, “Your son has an odd condition. We’ve discovered, through a lot of correspondence with other prestigious hospitals, that your son has virtually no creative power in his brain. He has no ability to instinctively know something. He has to be introduced to something to actually know about it, and that’s why he couldn’t breathe until assisted, or cry until he had seen another cry. Working on that theory…”

The doctor drifted off and looked at Jonathan, who was rubbing the board and adding more numbers, “We let him read some books. Simple children’s ones at first, and one night, about a month ago, he somehow got his hand on a book on Medical Science. He finished it in one night.”

The doctor looked at the stunned Mrs. Hill, “Your son, though essentially uncreative, has amazing brain power. He has finished over four dozen books on medical science and even managed to suggest valid diagnoses for ten difficult medical cases that have had us baffled here. He connects dots like no one in the world. He remembers too well, and can crunch almost any figure now. If his knowledge ever lacks, he says so, and we get him a book, and the information will never leave his head. He has even learnt German and French, although his dialect is still bad.”

Miss Hill looked up at Jonathan, “What… How?”

The doctor looked at Miss Hill, “Many were hoping you would know…”

Miss Hill shook her head, looking at Jonathan.

“He’s… He’s like a computer… isn’t he?” Miss Hill managed to choke out.

The doctor looked at Jonathan as well, “That’s exactly what people are calling him. Believe me; many things are going to happen around and because of this boy. And if he ever finds a way to get creative…”

There was no need to complete the sentence.