Take The Globe

The Bitter Woman

The fading evening light skittered into the room through the partially opened blinds, just barely illuminating a desk and the sole inhabitant of the room. A small bitter smile graced her face as she rubbed a hand over her furrowed brow. Eyes squinted in concentration, she sat before a notebook reviewing her plans. Brown hands clenched a pen, as tears streamed steadily down her face from unfeeling deep brown eyes. Something inside of her was broken. Deeply marred by life's events, and her refusal to develop the capacity to accept these things had turned this woman bitter. It was a bitterness so foul that it seeped out of her and gently caressed everyone she came in contact with.

'Not much longer', she assured herself, her fingers curling even tighter around the pen. Things were starting to fall into place, she could just picture the poor fools at the Global Organisation For Energy Preservation scrambling as the realisation dawned, exactly how grand a catastrophe was about to befall them. Pity made a faint stirring in her heart, but years of taking up prominent residency in her chest meant the bitterness was well practiced in snuffing out the tendril of pity.

A shaft of light from the corridor eased into the room, as the door quietly opened, and an Aide rolled in.

"What is it!" the bitter woman snapped. Unmoved by the emotional display, Aide Hathaway responded in a voice devoid of inflection.

"There is an issue in sector four."

The Aide paused, and if one was inclined that way, one could almost imagine an emotional inflection in that pause of speech. Distaste. Aide's were not given to emotional inflections however, and that would be the wild fancies of the one imagining the distaste and nothing else. "One of the new arrivals..."  the Aide paused again, almost as if it was trailing off at a loss for words, but again this narrator maintains that that is not  a response within the capacity of an Aide.

The bitter woman's face seemed to splinter as two chipped teeth appeared in the gash her mouth made as she smiled. "Well, I guess I have a little time, sector four was it? Lead the way Aide Hathaway".

The plush fibre of the cream carpeted hallway was crushed beneath her footfall, and as though it too was wary of incurring her wrath, it seemed to wait for her to pass on a few footsteps before it puffed back up.

Aide Hathaway and the bitter woman walked in silence, ignoring the small silver plaques on the grey walls with letters and numbers signposting the numerous corridors that sprawled the expansive building. They were both painstakingly familiar with the layout. Aide Hathaway came to a stop in front of an institutional double door. They were inlaid with glass panels, checkered with alternating clear and frosted squares. The Aide raised her hand not quite pushing the door open, green eyes darted towards the woman, faltered and seemingly shuddered, before she pushed the doors open.

The woman took note of the Aide's odd behaviour but catalogued it for perusal later. Now was not the time for that.

They walked into the room together, the sound of their footfalls changing as they hit the wooden floors. Fluorescent lights above were bright, and garish. There were three beds in the room, each with guard rails and various imposing medical equipment on the walls above them. By each bed were smaller incubator type cots. They walked down to the bed at the end.  For now, it was the only one occupied. A pale woman dressed in light blue robes sat propped up in the bed, in her arms a blanketed bundle.

Her eyes were wide and glassy with unshed tears, and two spots of colour sat high on her cheek bones. At the Aide and the bitter woman's approach, she gripped her blanketed bundle to her even closer.

She gulped, her fear was palpable, but determination set her mouth firmly.

Unfeeling deep brown eyes fixed their cold gaze on the woman's glassy stare. "Aide Hathaway informs me there is a problem?".

"Yes. No, I mean, there isn't a problem. I've just changed my mind." Her tongue darted out to lick her dry lips, "I've changed my mind Rowan".

"Ms. Brown, you recall we had lengthy conversations about this?" The bitter woman, Rowan, raised an impatient brow.

"Yes," the young woman choked "I remember" her voice was as frail as her body.

"And, do you recall telling me how convinced you were that this was the right thing for the child?" Rowan inquired impassively.

"Yes, I do, but I've changed my mind!" her voice grew stronger.

"And you recall telling me, that you wouldn't be able to provide for the child, you wouldn't be able to do much of anything for either of you if the child remained with you, that the child would be better off under the care, and tutelage of the global enforcement agency?" Rowan's face looked like a pair of folded arms, she had seen more than enough of this type of happening to feel much other than disdain for Ms Brown. It was just another day at work for Rowan Mino.

She didn't have much sympathy for those who came here with the power of their own two feet. Being forced was one thing, but coming here willingly? Well if you put yourself in position to get taken for a ride, and then you did actually get taken for a ride, wasn't that your own fault? Her hands fisted as the woman continued to speak.

"Yes" I remember it all" a sob tore out of the woman, "but I've changed my mind, how can I hold her in my arms, and hear her breathing, see her soft curls, and feel her warmth against me, and give-" she gasped breathlessly, "how can I do all that, and just let her go, let her be taken?"

Rowan looked down at her feet, when she looked back up at the woman, the anger had left her gaze, and her deep brown eyes returned to the cool unfeeling stone they usually resembled with Ms Brown none the wiser.

"I understand." The prim words fell from her lips.

She stepped away from the bed, and strode towards the double doors. Aide Hathaway scurried after her.

"Call the removal team, she signed the contracts, received a stipend even. Legally she no longer has a right to the child, the child is now part of the Bare of enforcers".

As they reached the corridor, Aide Hathaway turned left, and Rowan turned right, thoughts of the woman in the room melted away as others danced to the forefront of her mind. A time when it had been she making the protests. Rowan shook her head. No. She wouldn't visit those thought at this moment. Shaking her head, she looked up at the ceiling inhaling deeply, regaining her equilibrium. Rowan steeled herself once more.

'If you were stupid, weak, and made the wrong choices, then you deserved whatever happened to you,' Ms Brown deserved the pain the removal team would soon mete out, and the Globe deserved it's approaching reckoning.