Chapter 8
397 Words
8
The next morning she hoped the door would open to reveal a human again, but it was just breakfast, and, inexplicably, eye drops.
She couldn’t bring herself to feel excited about food this time.
Maybe this was all an exercise in lengthening attention spans? Corporate MKUltra for the twenty-first century. Can we reset humanity?
Man, that would suck.
She ate toast and an omelet like it was an obligation, which it was.
She was obligated to keep herself fueled, to keep herself alive. On a genetic level, her body demanded she keep going—you have not reproduced so you cannot relax.
Funny she was thinking that, because when a person appeared at the door in the early afternoon (after she failed to finish tomato soup and grilled cheese, buttery and delicious but also somehow infantilizing) it was a woman who interrogated her about birth control.
She was young and chipper and wore a doctor’s coat. Did not introduce herself. She led Sara to an OBGYN’s office complete with stirrups.
Why not?
“We don’t have a pap smear in your files,” the woman said. “We don’t want you to get cervical cancer.”
As if checking for cancer stopped it from appearing. Schrodinger’s cancerous cells that always fell away into nothing if you looked often enough?
After the pap smear she explained that everyone who entered the Community had to be on long term birth control. “It’s just so much easier,” she said, while prepping a T-shaped metal object that Sara understood would soon take up residence inside her.
“Even the men?” Sara asked.
Last she heard, men’s birth control spiraled the drain and never hit the market.
The woman grimaced and tried to pass it off as a smile. “It’s like herd immunity.”
Which was funny, since a lack of that had been part of the problem.
What had Bea said—what’s the point of feminism while the world burns?
Sara desperately wanted to talk to Bea about all of this. She couldn’t quite figure out how she felt without talking through her ideas with Bea, like a strange emotional barometer.
The procedure was more painful than she’d expected but less painful than she’d feared, and over quickly.
“You’ll be crampy and spotty for a week or so,” the woman said, patting her on the hand and passing her a bag containing pads and pain meds.
Sara nodded and clenched her teeth. The cramps started almost immediately.
“Ready to go back to your room?”
As if she had a choice.
- Writer
