Narrative Text: Redi

Fleeting voices ran rampant as she walked into the room. A forgettable, dime a dozen body; tall, bony and straight up and down. Yet her story was contained within her eyes, deep and dark and perfectly rounded pupils swimming about in pools of clear white. Slouching profoundly into her other wise regularly plain looking face, these were her calling card, speaking volumes, telling life, her life. I watched her take great gulps of orange juice from a plastic container she had earlier pulled out of her oversized name brand hand bag and it was only after she pulled out a magazine with the words “Rouge” printed in bold red letters across its cover followed by a stylish green jacket that I wondered what else she was carrying around with her. Was her soul bulging out as hard as her bag? Its contents overflowing…

The room was brightly lit and stuffy with sparse and inconsistent furniture that looked old and lacked cohesion there were plastic flower arrangements and old, outdated magazines placed on the three coffee tables that sat in the centre of the room with two rows of chairs on either side of them. A large credenza with a sign reading receptionist above it sat at one end of the room. As Redi stood and stepped toward the plumpy, light skinned woman seated behind the reception desk my attention fell to her outfit. She wore tight black jeans, an oversized white shirt with its sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a very high pair of tangerine coloured stilettos. She walked meekly, gaze focused firmly the ground avoiding the many eyes that were crawling all over her, dissecting and inspecting every little thing. The tongues wagged with each step she took, making in blatant judgement statements about her clothing, her hair, the way she walked, the reason she was at this clinic and everything in between. Yet with a firm determination she ignored this obvious attempt to belittle her. Reaching the receptionist she spoke, feeble and soft. The lady at the reception desk asked with a thunderous and slightly aggravated tone for her to remake her statement only louder and so she spoke again, a little firmer. Tugging at the sides of her shirt, she listened and responded accordingly whilst the prying eyes and pointing ears in the room also watched and listened attentively it was a however difficult for them to hear what she was saying.

Her cellphone rang and she placed with little care the form she had been filling out onto the empty chair beside her and pulled from her jacket, which she now had on, her phone and plonked it in a nonchalant manner onto her ear and spoke. Again her voice was low and restrained, but my overly intrigued ear was now within hearing distance.

“Yes.”

She listened then spoke again.

“I’m at the clinic, what time are you getting here?”

She listened.

“You aren’t…”

The voice on the other side of the phone interrupts her and she listened then spoke again.

“But everyone is here with someone and I’m sitting here all by myself.” There is now a slight aggravation and desperation contained within her voice. “you said you would be here with me.”

She takes a deep breath, listens again and once more she speaks.

“Ok, I’ll see you later then.”

I glance at the form on her chair and on it sits her name, her surname, her ID number and under the question reason for visit reads in carefully written block capital letters the words TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY.

“I love you too.” She says before hanging up the phone.

She glares lifelessly at her form, picks her juice bottle and magazine of the ground and throws them into her bag then tosses that bag over her shoulder and walks nonchalantly out the clinic door.