Late Term Abortion

I'm actually a little proud of this one. Bot-Four doesn't stand up as well as I would like, but I think this one will. But feel free to tell me how bad it sucks.

I want everyone who reads this to understand how hard this is for me to post prose on the Internets for all to see. I'm really self-conscious about it.

So, there you go, here's "Late Term Abortion."

“Honey, I want to have an abortion.”

“Again?” Harold asked his wife, Gladys. He’d been dodging her on this subject all week.

“I just can’t bear it anymore. It’s going to be more trouble if we wait any longer.” She had her heart set on abortion. What could he do?

“Can we talk about this later?” Harold turned the page of his newspaper, hoping to emphasize that he was too busy relaxing to bother with such weighty talk.

“I just want it over with. It’s hard enough, I’d rather do it while my mind is set.”

Harold tells her, not looking up from the sports section, “Now, Dear. Let’s not be hasty.”

“I’m not being hasty. I’ve been thinking about it for months. We both have. You just don’t have the nerve to say so.”

Maybe she was right, he thought. Then, resigning himself, “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” She seemed satisfied.

Then Harold sternly added, “You’ll have to tell him though. I had to tell his brother. You can tell him.”

“Fine. I’ll make the appointment and then we’ll go up and tell him together.” Gladys left the room to get on the phone, to ready her late term abortion.

“Yes. My name is Gladys Harper. I’d like to schedule an abortion…” All Harold could hear from the other end was a low toned buzz humming on and off in a secretarial cadence. “Yes. His name is Jeremy Harper. He’s sixteen years old.”

Harold shook his head, still trying to read his paper; trying hard not to pay attention to the phone conversation. “Well, he’s just not turning out the way he’s supposed to. I mean… He even applied to an art school not long ago, it’s just shameful. Can you believe it?”

Harold couldn’t believe it. And the only reason he was agreeing to the abortion was his overriding morality. He’d be damned to have a child of his turn into some type of God-forsaken hippy. He’d hoped that the boy would simply straighten out; Jeremy had only gotten worse in the last three months.

The House and Senate passed the Late Term Abortion Bill into law just before Jeremy’s older brother Bobby was born. Gladys and Harold’s decision to abort Bobby stemmed from his decision to join the Communist Party in High School. They thought the idea of sharing something as sacred as money with less fortunate people was nothing short of dangerous and against God.

So they had him aborted.

Almost everyone thought it was easier to abort someone with bad ideas than to listen to them, but you could only abort your own children and you only had until their eighteenth birthday to organize it. After that, you were on your own. You had to let anyone who had grown full term say whatever they wanted to. Some clever children faked being obedient and made it full term, afterwards, they elected to say things like, “The President is a Mother-Fucker.” Or, “Late-term abortions are evil.” Or, “We should give a fair share of money to the poor.” They could say things like this whenever they wanted to.

More often than not, though, they were simply run out of town at that point.

Nowadays, people seemed happier agreeing with each other and running those they disagreed with out of town. It was easier when they were younger though. They could simply schedule an appointment and simply wipe out their “childish mistakes.”

“All right then, we’ll be there next Tuesday. Thank you very much… Uh-huh… You, too. Buh-bye.” Gladys hung up the phone and took a deep breath. “All right Harold. The appointment is set for next Tuesday. Let’s go tell him.”

“Hrmmm… You’re sure you’re not going to change you mind? We still have a couple of years…”

“No. The appointment is made. My mind is set.” Then, as an afterthought, “Besides, we’ll be able to take that trip to Hawaii this year instead of the year after next.”

“Fine, but like I said, you’re telling him.”

They went upstairs together, holding each other by the arm for strength and moral support.

The door to his room was shut. Tacked clumsily to it was an upside down “Y” with a line intersecting it down the center encompassed by a circle. Gladys shuttered at the sight of it. The symbol was recognized widely as meaning this: peace.

Gently, Harold knocked on the door.

His voiced muffled through the wood, Jeremy called out, “Come in if you want…”

Harold swung the door wide, allowing his wife to go in first. The posters of Che Guevara and Marilyn Monroe forced a hard gasp from her chest. So disgusted by this leftist display, she couldn’t make eye contact with her son, her monster.

His father had no problem making eye contact with him, but quickly looked down at his feet as soon as he did, ashamed of himself. Not for the decision he and his wife just made, but because his son had turned into some type of Anti-American wretch.

Jeremy was sitting on his bed, reading a book. He set it down, meeting his parents’ silence head on, calmly combating it with this, “You’ve come to abort me. Haven’t you?”

Silence.

Harold was resigned to say nothing. Gladys was trying too hard to form words, but none came. Harold touched her back, indicating that it was her turn to speak. This worked, “Yes! We’re here to abort you, you un-grateful little bastard!”

She screamed this, hoping it would force similar emotions from Jeremy, hoping that he would show some remorse for the evil he’d been doing.

“Okay.” Jeremy said this as calmly as he’d ever said anything in his life.

Gladys moaned, wounded further, “How can you treat us like this? Can’t you feel guilt?”

The boy thought about this for a moment, then coolly: “Certainly I can. When I’ve done something wrong.”

This was too much for Harold, “Don’t you talk back to your mother like that. Can’t you see the damage you’ve already done to her?”

“It’s all in her head.” Jeremy was quick-tongued now that he had nothing left to lose.

“All in her he…? You’re a terror! Sent by the devil!”

“Why is that?” Jeremy truly didn’t know.

Gladys continued her sobbing and moaning. Harold pulled her under a consoling arm as he grew more and more outraged with his only remaining son, “Why is that? How could you dare ask me such a thing?!”

“Why am I evil for asking why?”

“Because you don’t know better!”

“Maybe you don’t know better.”

“You’ve made me ashamed that I tried to defend you from this abortion, but your liberal politics, your constant questioning of authority and this art school nonsense has gone too far.”

“Okay.”

Gladys broke down on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Tears began to well in Harold’s eyes, as well.

“Don’t cry. It’s all right. I don’t want to live anyway if I can’t do or say as I please.”

“There’s a special place in hell reserved for people like you…” Harold was so mad he didn’t know if he should shit or go blind.

Then, screeching from the floor, Gladys wished her son well, “I hope you rot in hell for ever and all eternity you little monster!”

“Me too. So long as I’m allowed to say so.”

Jeremy wanted to end this episode by insulting and offending his parents as much as possible, he wanted them to sob and wail like babies.

This is what he said: “If God is okay with this, then he's a mother-fucker.”

And their wails and sobs filled Jeremy with enough joy to take him to his grave…

…this coming Tuesday.