The first kiss

The image refused to come into view. His eyes strained themselves to catch sight of what lay beyond the hazy figure.

This was the Kodak moment he had dreamt about all these days. He had got a digicam specially to shoot this very moment. As months turned into days and days into hours and hours into minutes, his anxiety grew by leaps and bounds. Pity he was not there to enjoy it. Probably it was God's way of not letting him witness the terrible pain and suffering that one goes through before this very moment. Suddenly, he felt so incapable of balancing his personal and professional life.

Finally, as the blur image came into perfect focus, he saw it - a half-naked tiny version of himself, draped in a small white piece of cloth. It was a part of him. It was a part of her. It was a part of them. The pink skin, round cheeks flushed with blood, sharp nose like him, brown magical eyes like her, tiny fingers and toes – everything about the baby seemed perfect. Big things did come in small packages. His eyes slowly shifted to his wife. He saw her weary yet cheerful eyes as she held her boy close to her chest. She was now a complete woman. A proud mother of their son.

His baby looked so inviting to be kissed. He could clearly see the veins run through its soft cheeks. He gently touched them and ran his fingers along the outline of its tender cheeks and gently pinched its chin. Just then he realized that he could only touch them. It was impossible to feel them. A few months back, he had felt this naughty kid kick his mom's tummy. But today, he was oceans apart from his kid, staring at a dynamic image of his baby projected from a webcam. As he sat admiring his baby on his computer screen, his mind wondered if he had to thank technology for this innovation or curse it for making him feel so helpless and distant.

Just then, the radio in his room blared with the song, "It's a small world afterall." He felt like slamming a pair of nasty shoes into the singer's mouth and breaking the radio. But right now, he was more desperate to steal a kiss from the sleeping junior.