I Resign
They needed a break from the room, some time away from being seen by their partner, the doctor, the impulse to say something, to attend to them. They got a soda and sat out in the center island down the hall and absent-mindedly rolled a bit of perlite that had spilled from a planter of plasticky-looking plants under their foot. They couldn’t decide what they ought to do, as accustomed as they were to constant activity, nothing came to mind beyond aimlessly pushing soil around and tasting the acetone-tinged citrus of the soda in their mouth.
A woman who was holding a tube of chips came in from the opposite direction and sat down a polite distance away. They sat together without explicitly acknowledging one another for a few minutes until the woman waved the tube at them. “Pringle?” she asked.
“Oh no thanks, I’m good,” they responded. They looked out the corner of their eye at her. She was wearing clinic-issue clothing similar to theirs but better-fitting, more like a uniform. “Do you mind if I ask you something?” they asked.
“Ask me whatever you like,” she said. “I’m an open book.”
They were able to push past their automatic distaste for the expression because her voice was soft and her hair was harmless. The other ladies in the capitol would have made passive cracks about her weight, which was just fine, actually.
“So is this place a clinic? Because it looks like a mall, but I was, I was just inside a doctor’s office. I’m just, it’s just that I’m confused, a little.”
“Oh, that’s normal, at first. This building covers the whole core of City Island. I’ve been here for ages and I’ve never seen all of it. I even got lost once, it took me a couple hours to find my way back to my room,” she grimaced with exaggerated self-deprecation. “If you keep going back that way,” she said, gesturing back towards their room, the clinic, “there’s a food court. It’s got a bread pretzel place and a lo mein cart. It’s a good option when you need a break from the clinic food,” she said, somehow now a tour guide.
“Wait, how long have you been here?” they asked.
She made a facial expression as if she were calculating something, a trick they had also learned when younger to appear more endearing. “About a dozen years.”
“A dozen!” they tried to lower their voice. “Wow, a dozen. You must like it here. Were you able to find work? Do you live in well, here?” They were too interrogatory and they knew it, so they stopped.
“I know, it sounds like a long time, but after the first few days, it just seemed right. After they showed me, well, everything, I decided to stay,” her wistfulness peaked through her put-on sarcasm. “What about you? Have they explained it to you yet?”
“Explained what?”
“Why they brought you here, what they see.”
“No, they just told us today where we are.”
“Ok, just the beginning then.” She didn’t sound condescending but would in memory. “Who came with you?”
“Oh, my puh--, uh, my boyfriend.”
They were starting to feel awkward, but she seemed to understand and let it ride. They took leave of her after a while, striding towards their room. The doctor was there again and she looked like she was gearing up to talk authoritatively, but they pre-empted her.
“I know what I want,” they said.
“Oh, you just arrived, you have plenty of time to think and study and review your options,” said the doctor, genuinely surprised.
“No, I know, today.” She and their partner looked at them as if they were a child speaking out of turn at a dinner party, but they didn’t stop her.
“I know I don’t want to have a baby. I’ve decided. I think we should go home, as soon as possible,” they said while looking directly at their partner.