Short Stories

---

My husband Rudolph drove me up to the abortion clinic on his motorcycle. We dismounted and walked over the stinky open sewer by a shaky wooden plank and into the dirty old cement building. It said “Doctor’s Office” on it but they must have done abortions also which were illegal in Nigeria.

I clung to Rudolph like a 6 year old at her first day at school. He shrugged me off like a big brother, not like he was my husband and also was about to kill his child. We sat in the waiting room.
“Mrs. Coker” the nurse called harshly an hour later “You’re next!”
I got up to go in, giving Rudolph one more longing look. But he was busy reading his newspaper.

Strapped to the operating table the doctor’s rubber gloves were loud as he put them on.
“Ouch” I reacted to the injection the rough nurse was giving me without warning.
“What is ouch? Don’t you want to be asleep?”
“Yes” I whimpered. My voice telling me how terrified I was. The doctor drew my legs up and over the stirrups and began examining my vagina. Suddenly thinking only of my own comfort I said, “I’m not asleep yet!” Faintly I heard laughter as the room and all the people in it faded away.

“Wake up Mary. It’s time to wake up.” I couldn’t imagine where I was, but I felt the thin mattress under me and then saw through a blur the face of a nurse.
“You have to wake up now. It’s time for you to go.”
Things became clear and I could see her. Looking around I was in a room on a cot with other women on cots and I remembered what I had allowed doctors to do to me and an unborn.

Finally I was up and out the door, painfully trying to sling my legs over the back seat of the motorcycle. Rudolph was impatient to get out of that neighborhood and so quickly we were off.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE