Looking Up

Normally, the cervical curvature of the neck forms over time as a baby gains strength and builds muscle to lift its head. Babies start life without a convex curve in their neck. If, however, a particular baby's neck, while developing in the womb, is formed with two of the vertebrae, the C4 and C5, pushed slightly further inward than normal, making the neck already very slightly convex, the baby would never know. Neither would its parents. The baby would grow and be healthy and normal. Its neck muscles would develop around the tiny deformity, the spine would adjust and adapt over time to minimize any negative impacts the overly convex neck might have. The only signs of abnormality would come in the form of mild neck and head aches. The miracle of the human body overcoming the limitless problems that the formation of life entails. The effects, however, would be seen elsewhere. As the baby grows into a child and an adolescent, she would find it more comfortable than her peers would to sit with her head tilted back, gazing up at the sky. She could spend hours staring up, comfortably tracking stars across the night sky, calmly monitoring the clouds' conglomeration into a storm. She would like this about herself. She'd hear stories about how people don't look up enough, about how people who look up more are dreamers, creative thinkers. These stories would make her happy to be herself, a person who otherwise did not stand out, was not creative. She would never know that her own favorite character trait was caused by a deformity rooted long before she took her first breath. As people are prone to do, she would seek out the tiny glimmers of individuality that would make her feel unique, she would find them, and she would think no further about why she loved to look up at the sky.