Cameron Pierce - Abortion Arcade

“What is your emergency?”

“My pregnant wife is unconscious.”

“How long has she been unconscious?”

“A few minutes I think.”

“What is your location?”

“Seven-One-Seven Golden Oak Drive.”

“An emergency dispatch will—”

“An emergency dispatch will what? Will be here shortly? Answer me!”

He looks at the phone, hesitant to hang up, but there is a blue string running out of his right hand, and he drops the phone.

Fifteen minutes later, an ambulance pulls to the curb outside the apartment. Simon opens the door. Two ambulance men dressed in gray uniforms and carrying a stretcher between them hop out of the ambulance and hurry into the apartment. One of the men has curly red hair and looks to be about Simon’s age. The other man has a white handlebar mustache. The ambulance men have strings identical to Celia’s strings, minus the belly strings. Simon decides to ignore the strings so the ambulance men can focus on Celia. He doesn’t want to cause a scene.

The men place the stretcher next to Celia on the bed and set to work checking her vital signs.

“No pulse,” the mustached one says.

“No temperature,” says the one with red hair.

“Even if she’s dead, she should still have a temperature.”

“Well it’s obviously the temperature of a dead person, so it may as well be none at all.”

“Standard procedure, Dan,” says the mustached one.

“Temperature is protocol.” He turns to Simon. “Really sorry about the attitude. He’s new to the ambulance squad.”

The men roll Celia onto the stretcher.

“Is she OK?” Simon asks.

“For a dead woman,” Dan says.

“Oh shut up,” says the mustached one. “I’m sorry to report, sir, this woman here is

beyond retrieval.”

“Beyond retrieval?”

“It means there’s nothing we can do to bring her back.”

“She’s gone, chap,” Dan says. “Left you for a Mister Rigor Mortis.”

“What did I just tell you?” the mustached one says.

“You said she’s beyond retrieval.”

“Of course she is, but no! I told you to shut up. Now shut up and lift.” And to Simon: “Again, I’m terribly sorry for his behavior.”

The men lift the stretcher and move toward the door.

“Hold on a minute.” Simon hurries in front of them, blocking their exit. “Where are you taking her?”

“Trying to keep her around for some after-hours fun, eh?” Dan says.

“Idiot!” says the mustached one. “I’ll be back in a moment to discuss the paperwork.”

“Paperwork?” Simon says.

“Death papers, funeral forms, a load of bollocks if you ask me,” Dan says.

“Nobody asked you,” says the mustached one.

The ambulance men push past Simon, balancing the stretcher between them. They load Celia into the back of the ambulance and hop in after her.

The emergency siren howls.

Simon thinks they are about to drive off, having practically abducted Celia from the apartment, when the mustached one hops out of the ambulance, holding a thick stack of papers in his hands. The mustached one yells something to Simon, but his words are drowned by the siren.

They go inside and the mustached one says, “Take a seat.”

Simon sits at the table. The mustached one lays the stack of papers in front of him. He puts a pen in Simon’s hand and says, “Sign here, please.”

“Sign where?” Simon says.

“Anywhere. I just meant sign the forms. It doesn’t matter where you sign, or what order you sign them in, but all these forms do have to be signed.”

“What are they for?”

“Records and Information. Tax men. Telemarketers. Local, state, and federal governments. The green forms contain information about the funeral. They certify that you trust the hospital to make all funeral arrangements. One of those forms is an Agreement of Notification. The hospital agrees to notify all immediate family members of the deceased. Were you her spouse?”

“Yes.”

“The hospital will not contact your side of the family. They leave that up to you.”

“OK.”

“And friends. Should friends be attending the funeral, you will need to notify them in advance. Johnston Funeral Services handles all of our funeral affairs. Anyone who is not a member of the immediate family of the deceased must contact JFS and RSVP if they are to attend the funeral.”

“Do I need to… RSVP?”

“No. Spouses are considered immediate family.”

“Is there anything I can do? Anything I should be doing?”

“Sign these papers. Beyond that, you’re off the hook.

Call people, if you’d like. We have a grieving hotline, if you need. The hospital, or JFS on our behalf, will contact you soon with the date and time at which the funeral is to be held. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Can I—”

“Can you hurry up signing the paperwork? Your wife is not the only person dead or dying today. We’ve got at least a dozen emergency stops after this one.”

Simon signs the papers faster. His hand is beginning to cramp. Outside, the ambulance siren continues to wail.

“I’m sorry. It’s just—”

“I know. Hard. I’m sorry, again, for your loss.”

After the final form is signed, the mustached one collects the stack of paperwork under his left arm. “The hospital will be in touch,” he says. He salutes Simon and marches out of the apartment.

After the ambulance goes, Simon finds a pair of scissors.

They are left-handed scissors because Celia was left-handed. The scissors feel awkward in his right hand, but he is right-handed and prefers the awkward feeling of using left-handed scissors with his right hand to the awkward feeling of using any scissors with his left hand.

He cuts the string attached to his left hand. It hurts very badly. He screams. His left arm falls limp at his side. He drops the scissors. He can no longer move his left arm.

Simon curls up in a little ball on the floor. He screams into the Persian rug. The rug is stained and smeared with elephant shit. He does not care. He is in severe pain. His left arm is immobile. He has killed Celia. He has killed their unborn child. He feels destroyed. Worse, he feels guilty.

Simon picks up the scissors in his right hand. He will kill himself.

He realizes that he cannot cut the string attached to his right hand if he is holding the scissors in his right hand.

He can cut all the other strings if he wants, but he fears that if he cuts all the strings except the string attached to his right hand, his spirit or whatever will be absorbed by his right arm and he will live the rest of his days as a right arm. Simon does not want to live the rest of his days as a right arm.

Out of frustration and a sense that he has reached his grieving limit, he throws the scissors against the wall.

Unlike Celia’s strings, his severed string does not disintegrate or retract into the ceiling. It floats about a foot above his head.

He gets up off the floor. He has resolved to make something work. He finds some thread and needle in a drawer.

He will sew his broken string back to his left hand. No he won’t. He cannot thread the needle with only one hand.

He does not possess that skill.

In the same drawer where he found the thread and needle, he finds a roll of electrical tape. He peels the tape back and clenches it between his teeth. He holds the tape roll in his right hand, unwinding it in a slow and cautious manner. When his arm can reach no further, he drops the tape roll and unsticks the tape from his teeth and lips.

He sticks one tape end against the back of a chair, retrieves the scissors from where they landed, and cuts off the other end. Simon repeats this six more times. It is a tedious process but eventually he has seven pieces of electrical tape that are as long as his arm.