1. The Kiosk
The heavy glass door was entirely unsmudged, opening without a sound as Jessica hesitated at the entrance of the clinic. The girl walking in before her looked back over her shoulder with the modern mark of insouciance. She must be here for the same reason as I am, Jessica thought, so why does she look so peaceful?
Two jointless mechanical arms above the inside of the door reached down to remove Jessica's coat and hat as she entered. Not a single blue hair was disturbed on her head. She found herself on a moving walkway which took her towards an automated kiosk fifty yards away. Potted plants with purple flowers lined the walls on either side of her as the carefree girl who had passed her a minute before was already being lifted through a transport tube to an appointment room. The girl stabbed her own arm with a hypodermic needle as she floated effortlessly into a hole in the ceiling, and Jessica watched the girl’s lips curl into an orgasmic smile.
Last month she read in a pamphlet for the clinic that it had been designed to promote a calming effect on the patients. Some inoffensively bland electronic music wafted quasi-organically through the air. Jessica felt strangely calmed by these sounds and tried to stop herself from feeling at ease. Her father would say this was her way of being self-destructive. He never hesitated to give her advice when he caught her worrying at her fingertips. For some reason she could never allow herself to relax.
“The world shouldn't always seem slightly off to you,” he told her. "You do it to yourself, thinking too much."
Occasionally along the moving path, a simulated bird would chirp whimsically in the distance. Other unseen birds would reply in a soothing unified chorus from somewhere down the pathway. Jessica noticed along the tops of the walls wound wisteria vines into the distance. They appeared to slowly twist and entangle along with the gentle rhythms of the music. Listening closer she could almost hear the peaceful sounds of water trickling as through a creek in between synthetic piano flourishes and soft constant bass tones. Hypnotized, she neared the inevitable kiosk.
Without a sound the machine scanned Jessica's retinas. Seconds later, it spoke in a disarmingly calm voice.
"Welcome, Jessica," it said, "to The People's Clinic for Advanced Fetal Research. Please insert your index finger into the imprint device and wait a moment for me to review our record of your appointment with us today. Enjoy this complementary cup of ginger tea with one sugar just as you like it."
With this greeting a swift arm exited from somewhere inside the kiosk. In its gloved metal hand it held a cup of ginger tea at the perfect temperature for sipping, at Jessica's preferred temperature in fact.
"No, thanks," said Jessica to the air around her, eyes shifty and paranoid. "I don't think I can drink anything right now."
She looked around herself uneasily, rubbing her stomach and blushing at the inconspicuous eyes she felt watching her. She was convinced she felt something moving around inside of her and tried her best to ignore the premonition. Her dad told her it was too soon to be feeling anything like a kick.
"The procedure will be worth it," he'd reassured her. "You have your whole life ahead of you, honey."
He'd offered to go with her to the clinic, but she said it was something she preferred to do alone. For a moment the entire hallway was silent, as though by a prompt of some kind all those lulling sounds from before were turned off to make her feel even more tense and uneasy. Then another woman entered in through the front door and the white noise resumed like it had never ceased. The girl behind Jessica, as she stepped onto the automated path, looked carefree like the girl from before, perhaps even a little proud to be there. For a moment Jessica wished she hadn't told her dad not to come with her. He'd been very supportive throughout all of this.
