It was like revisiting one of those crime scenes. The women crawling in corners, and wriggling in pain. The blank looks, and the suffering on their faces. She remembered them, those faces and that suffering. She felt helpless for those whose faces were drawn with fear, and loss.
She did not know how to help any, let alone help herself.
They called it a clinic, but it was more like a slaughter house. Hygiene, safety all lost. But women visiting out of desperation, to get some relief, to get rid of those unwanted lives growing within them.
Do they even want to go through it? she knew not. She did not have the courage to ask. She was a mere witness of the horror that flowed or followed.
May be she was raped, or maybe she already had too many kids. May be she had a jackass of a boyfriend who did not believe in being a father to the child he gave. So many options, so many presumptions, available and just flowing in the air. One too many I say.
She just stared, a spectator of crimes being committed, every 30 minutes, one woman after another, walking up the stairs, then walking out in a bloodstained cloth. They just walk out, on their own, the stains of blood, the stains of their lost virtue, pride and dignity. The depression is yet to flow, and they will embrace it, or they will walk off, out of that ugly image, indifferent, emotionless or unbroken. May be life moves on for them. May be life is simple, clear cut, and not worth comprehension. May be they just do not think, analyse, or rather, over analyse.
The night is beautiful. He keeps on talking, holding her hand. “It’s all her fault! I mean don’t these women believe in the pill?” She just looks at him. Suddenly seeing him in a different light. “I am all for legalising abortion, but this, this is disgusting..” and the rest of the words just get drowned, in those ugly images of the slaughter house, where she was seated waiting for her friend, to walk out safe.
The smell of blood, the pain on their faces, the feelings and the fear. The loss of a loved one wanted, thanks to a moron. The tears that flow down her cheeks, the tears of feeling a slut, and hugging the friend as she sobs. All gush in.
It was not “her” fault! She knows it.
And just for a moment, she just hated him with all the love she had in her heart.
