Hall of Infinite Doors
You thank Jasmine for the ride and her support, promising to tell her how it all works out. She tries to insist on coming in with you and helping you through this, but you staunchly deny her. This is your problem, and you're not going to have your friend help fight your battles for you. As you watch her drive away, a tiny, selfish part of you mourns the loss of potential support, but you're proud of yourself for handling this alone.
You cross the street and begin to approach the mob. Your original estimate of a hundred people looks off; there's definitely more. Many are dressed very well, like they just left church, but the stern, righteous and angry expressions on their faces counteract whatever benefit might be gained from their fancy clothes. You shakily purchase an iced tea from a nearby vendor, and pause against a building, trying to act nonchalant and vague while observing the crowd.
Two of the children darting around and playing look vaguely familiar. To you, most children look alike, but the blonde-haired boys rolling around and playing heedless of their small black suits spark some bit of recognition in you. Suddenly it dawns on you: they're Danny and Luke Perrel. You've babysat them before. The job was arranged through your mother, and though it didn't pay much and you had to eventually quit due to a play you were doing, you left on good terms and got to know their mother, Ginny, well enough during your employ. You approach rapidly, waving your free hand and calling to the boys, and the two pause in their wrestling and squint at you, for a moment looking confused as to who it is approaching them, and then finally with a gush of relief recognizing you. Danny, the youngest at four, even lets out a happy squeal and runs up to hug your knee and try to slurp up your drink.
You spend a bit of time playing with the boys. They're bigger than you remember them being, but not much. Talking to them makes you twinge a little inside. You don't quite know if it's with regret, but you know it's something. Eventually, after talking and playing with them for a little while, their mother's keen parental senses notice her sons' absence and moves her to talk to the girl talking with them. When you rise you see Ginny, middle-aged and pastel in her church dress, and thankfully, you see her smile with recognition.
"Renee!", she says, "Whatever are you doing so far from home? It's good to see you! How did the play go?" You're grateful for the recognition, to find someone you know, and this might even be pleasant if she wasn't participating in an angry mob. You peer over her shoulder and ask if you can take a donut from their communal table, being as you haven't eaten (and desperately need an excuse to lose yourself in the crowd), and all smiles and politeness she obliges. "You're so SKINNY," she says while picking out a white ring of cake and powdered sugar, "sometimes we wonder if you eat at all. Not that we don't admire your efforts. Remarkable self-control. Not like THESE sinful wretches." She inclines her head toward the clinic, and for a moment her face becomes a mask of bitterness. You nibble the donut tentatively, as you are suddenly without appetite.
After a small chat, you mention that you have to be on your way. Ginny Perrel almost squeals in sadness, asking where you have to go so quickly and practically begging you to join their protest. You're in the process of trying to gently excuse yourself without setting off a religious landmine when you hear a ragged, pained and awfully familiar scream from somewhere behind you.
You turn, wincing. In the middle of the crowd, staring horrified at you, is your mother. She surges toward you, red-faced and screaming, and you feel the ground beneath you pull away as you wish you could faint.
Over the next few weeks your life becomes a living hell. Tottering between outright kicking you out of the house and just locking you away in a room with a toilet, a sink, your school books and a Bible for the rest of eternity, your mother becomes a screaming death hen unable to be controlled or repressed. Your father, calm and rational by nature, is completely bowled over by the sheer force of her rage and emotions. The night she drags you back home, after driving you screaming around town to church after church, she proceeds to call all her friends and GOSSIP about what she just did. It barely takes a day for everyone over 35 to know. Though eventually you do schedule another date for your abortion and you do, in fact, go through with it, a rift is forever made both in your family and social life. Both your immediate and extended family finds out quickly about your unplanned pregnancy and splits down the middle. Your mother and your eldest brother denounce you for a whore and do everything short of setting you on fire to make your life miserable. Your father and your other brother are calmer, but often cowed by the others. Your second-oldest brother mentions clandestinely to you that if problems at home ever get to be too much, he'll put you up at his apartment near his college. Your father supports you, but his rational arguements and terse support is no match for your mother's raw zealotry and fury. Even when she calms, you just can't stop crying; it seems the disaster that's hounded you all your life, waiting, has finally fallen on your back.
What's worse is that EVERYONE KNOWS. Your mother has many friends, and they have many more, all essentially sharing the same position and all in many different vocations around your city. For the first time in your life you get abysmal failing grades at school, and get into trouble for things you didn't even know about from your principal. Some friends pull away from you at school at the urgings of your parents, while some others grow uncomfortably close. The word "whore" sticks to you, and you get an undeserved reputation as an easy lay, drawing males from out of nowhere wanting to take advantage of you. And the worst thing is that you're cut from your play, and find work from there on in almost impossible to come by. Eventually, you're forced to take your brother's offer and move. You try to get into college and start a new life for yourself, become active in local theater and start trying to work a career for yourself again, but the events of the past always seem to haunt you, and for the rest of your life you can't shake the feeling that someone, everyone knows, and that no matter what you do, something's going to tear away your life any time it even approaches glory.
You cross the street and begin to approach the mob. Your original estimate of a hundred people looks off; there's definitely more. Many are dressed very well, like they just left church, but the stern, righteous and angry expressions on their faces counteract whatever benefit might be gained from their fancy clothes. You shakily purchase an iced tea from a nearby vendor, and pause against a building, trying to act nonchalant and vague while observing the crowd.
Two of the children darting around and playing look vaguely familiar. To you, most children look alike, but the blonde-haired boys rolling around and playing heedless of their small black suits spark some bit of recognition in you. Suddenly it dawns on you: they're Danny and Luke Perrel. You've babysat them before. The job was arranged through your mother, and though it didn't pay much and you had to eventually quit due to a play you were doing, you left on good terms and got to know their mother, Ginny, well enough during your employ. You approach rapidly, waving your free hand and calling to the boys, and the two pause in their wrestling and squint at you, for a moment looking confused as to who it is approaching them, and then finally with a gush of relief recognizing you. Danny, the youngest at four, even lets out a happy squeal and runs up to hug your knee and try to slurp up your drink.
You spend a bit of time playing with the boys. They're bigger than you remember them being, but not much. Talking to them makes you twinge a little inside. You don't quite know if it's with regret, but you know it's something. Eventually, after talking and playing with them for a little while, their mother's keen parental senses notice her sons' absence and moves her to talk to the girl talking with them. When you rise you see Ginny, middle-aged and pastel in her church dress, and thankfully, you see her smile with recognition.
"Renee!", she says, "Whatever are you doing so far from home? It's good to see you! How did the play go?" You're grateful for the recognition, to find someone you know, and this might even be pleasant if she wasn't participating in an angry mob. You peer over her shoulder and ask if you can take a donut from their communal table, being as you haven't eaten (and desperately need an excuse to lose yourself in the crowd), and all smiles and politeness she obliges. "You're so SKINNY," she says while picking out a white ring of cake and powdered sugar, "sometimes we wonder if you eat at all. Not that we don't admire your efforts. Remarkable self-control. Not like THESE sinful wretches." She inclines her head toward the clinic, and for a moment her face becomes a mask of bitterness. You nibble the donut tentatively, as you are suddenly without appetite.
After a small chat, you mention that you have to be on your way. Ginny Perrel almost squeals in sadness, asking where you have to go so quickly and practically begging you to join their protest. You're in the process of trying to gently excuse yourself without setting off a religious landmine when you hear a ragged, pained and awfully familiar scream from somewhere behind you.
You turn, wincing. In the middle of the crowd, staring horrified at you, is your mother. She surges toward you, red-faced and screaming, and you feel the ground beneath you pull away as you wish you could faint.
Over the next few weeks your life becomes a living hell. Tottering between outright kicking you out of the house and just locking you away in a room with a toilet, a sink, your school books and a Bible for the rest of eternity, your mother becomes a screaming death hen unable to be controlled or repressed. Your father, calm and rational by nature, is completely bowled over by the sheer force of her rage and emotions. The night she drags you back home, after driving you screaming around town to church after church, she proceeds to call all her friends and GOSSIP about what she just did. It barely takes a day for everyone over 35 to know. Though eventually you do schedule another date for your abortion and you do, in fact, go through with it, a rift is forever made both in your family and social life. Both your immediate and extended family finds out quickly about your unplanned pregnancy and splits down the middle. Your mother and your eldest brother denounce you for a whore and do everything short of setting you on fire to make your life miserable. Your father and your other brother are calmer, but often cowed by the others. Your second-oldest brother mentions clandestinely to you that if problems at home ever get to be too much, he'll put you up at his apartment near his college. Your father supports you, but his rational arguements and terse support is no match for your mother's raw zealotry and fury. Even when she calms, you just can't stop crying; it seems the disaster that's hounded you all your life, waiting, has finally fallen on your back.
What's worse is that EVERYONE KNOWS. Your mother has many friends, and they have many more, all essentially sharing the same position and all in many different vocations around your city. For the first time in your life you get abysmal failing grades at school, and get into trouble for things you didn't even know about from your principal. Some friends pull away from you at school at the urgings of your parents, while some others grow uncomfortably close. The word "whore" sticks to you, and you get an undeserved reputation as an easy lay, drawing males from out of nowhere wanting to take advantage of you. And the worst thing is that you're cut from your play, and find work from there on in almost impossible to come by. Eventually, you're forced to take your brother's offer and move. You try to get into college and start a new life for yourself, become active in local theater and start trying to work a career for yourself again, but the events of the past always seem to haunt you, and for the rest of your life you can't shake the feeling that someone, everyone knows, and that no matter what you do, something's going to tear away your life any time it even approaches glory.
