A Cup Of Coffee

She strode along the pavement, not stopping, not looking back, not knowing where she was going. Her heart was thumping hard, and her jaw was set and tense. The snow had turned to slush, a cold drizzle was coating her hair and dripping down her neck. But with every step she felt a little better. With every step she was further into anonymity, away from the shocked faces of her family.

Her whole body pricked with anger .She’d never witnessed such an ugly family scene.She closed her eyes she felt raw and vulnerable , not ready for this. People would surely expect her to answer question, to reassure them and help them digest this piece of startling information .But she had barely digested it herself .

Her condition was a nebulous fact floating around her mind, unwanted and uninformed, as yet presentable to the outside world. She couldn’t articulate what she thought about it, could no longer distinguish between emotional and physical sensation. She was still confused .She still wasn’t sure what it felt like? To have a child inside you? But she didn’t want to answer that question. She didn’t want to think of herself as carrying a child.

She stopped in a corner and cautiously laid her hand over her stomach. When she imagined whatever was inside her, it was small; it was like a small shellfish, or a snail.  Something coiled up and hardly human something indeterminate. It was another day older. Another day more developed. Perhaps it had features by now. Perhaps it had little hands, little toes. It was a boy or a girl. A little person, growing inside her. Whose life had not yet begun. Whose life might, if she chose, progress no further.  A wave of strong feeling, half grief, half sickness, swept over her, and she began to tremble. She had to decide whether another human’s life should go ahead or not.

The thought transfixed her. She felt almost overcome by her burden, overwhelmed by the decision she was going to have to make, for a moment she thought she might collapse, sobbing, on the hard pavement. But instead, with a slight impatient shake of the head, she thrust her hands deeper into her pockets and, teeth gritted, began to walk once again.

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