Hall of Infinite Doors
Located in a new-ish neighborhood that the city is desperately trying to build up with commerce and retail stores, Gentry Valley is, on the outside, not a very imposing place. It has a website, which gives a tour of the external area, gives a description of the abortion process and the names and a small biography of several doctors and nurses involved in the process. Oddly, its hours aren't stated, and when you click on its guestbook you are greeted with gobs and gobs of angry, capitalized, and often misspelled text denouncing the murderers who work in the building and calling on whoever might be reading to change their mind and email the progenitor of the message in order to get the RIGHT information. This makes you feel a little uneasy, but your suspicions are allayed when you phone the clinic and consult with a friendly secretary on the other end of the phone. After a short discussion, you set an appointment for the next weekend. You feel kind of odd when you set down the phone, at the same time like you've set something in motion that simply had to be done, and that such a morally involved process as ending a pregnancy was scheduled so easily like that. You tell your father of the date, and he nods in agreement; your mother is less hysterical now but still just as disapproving and disappointed as she was. Your father says he's "working on" her, but you doubt she'll ever see you the same way again. She used to be so proud of you.
You're much more choosy with the friends you trust, as your general state of trusting people has been shaken with the recent ordeal, but you eventually confide in three of your closest friends. One of them, an older girl named Jasmine, offers to drive you there; though she's not undergone the procedure herself, she has aspirations to be a nurse and knows something of the actual process.
Eventually, the day arrives. It's a calm springtime Sunday afternoon when Jasmine's slightly-rusty blue Buick pulls up in your driveway. You haven't been able to sleep much the night before, and are terrified and jittery, but reluctant to take any stimulants or even eat much, constantly worried about what effect that will have on the procedure or whether your child, so soonly doomed, will appreciate it. You pile into the car next to Jasmine and relax almost instantly; the girl has maturity and good vibes to spare, and knows just how to cheer you up. You promise to drink to the baby after the fact.
Upon pulling into the street leading to the clinic, however, you're greeted by an unwelcome sight. There's about a hundred people piled onto the road and the sidewalks, children mixed in among them, dressed well and holding signs. They're talking and yelling at passersby and waving their signs about, which contain anti-abortion slogans and graphic pictures of aborted fetuses. Children dash between feet, playing with each other, grabbing donuts, and occasionally pressed into service waving signs or distributing pamphles. You watch as an older woman, likely a nurse, tries to enter the building only to be accosted on all sides by screaming protesters, to the point where she has to physically push her way through the crowd to get to the building. It looks like a church let out, came here, and exploded into rage and craziness.
You're not going to have an easy time getting in there.
You're much more choosy with the friends you trust, as your general state of trusting people has been shaken with the recent ordeal, but you eventually confide in three of your closest friends. One of them, an older girl named Jasmine, offers to drive you there; though she's not undergone the procedure herself, she has aspirations to be a nurse and knows something of the actual process.
Eventually, the day arrives. It's a calm springtime Sunday afternoon when Jasmine's slightly-rusty blue Buick pulls up in your driveway. You haven't been able to sleep much the night before, and are terrified and jittery, but reluctant to take any stimulants or even eat much, constantly worried about what effect that will have on the procedure or whether your child, so soonly doomed, will appreciate it. You pile into the car next to Jasmine and relax almost instantly; the girl has maturity and good vibes to spare, and knows just how to cheer you up. You promise to drink to the baby after the fact.
Upon pulling into the street leading to the clinic, however, you're greeted by an unwelcome sight. There's about a hundred people piled onto the road and the sidewalks, children mixed in among them, dressed well and holding signs. They're talking and yelling at passersby and waving their signs about, which contain anti-abortion slogans and graphic pictures of aborted fetuses. Children dash between feet, playing with each other, grabbing donuts, and occasionally pressed into service waving signs or distributing pamphles. You watch as an older woman, likely a nurse, tries to enter the building only to be accosted on all sides by screaming protesters, to the point where she has to physically push her way through the crowd to get to the building. It looks like a church let out, came here, and exploded into rage and craziness.
You're not going to have an easy time getting in there.